Double Standard Wizard

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Here is what the wizard would look like if we use the same standards for fantasy for it as the developers for 5e did for the fighter... I consider this to be more of a parody, I'm taking it seriously but this entire project parodies the designer's ability to make casters and noncasters.


The Wizard




Level
Prof. Bonus
Features


1
+2
Spell Caster, Wizard School


2
+2
Action Surge


3
+2
Subclass


4
+2
Ability Score Increase


5
+3
Extra Magic Attack (1)


6
+3
Ability Score Increase


7
+3
Subclass Feature


8
+3
Ability Score Increase


9
+4
Arcane Surge (1 Use)


10
+4
Subclass Feature


11
+4
Extra Magic Attack (2)


12
+4
Ability Score Increase


13
+5
Arcane Surge (2 Uses)


14
+5
Ability Score Increase


15
+5
Subclass Feature


16
+5
Ability Score Increase


17
+6
Action Surge (2 Uses)
Arcane Surge (3 Uses)


18
+6
Subclass Feature


19
+6
Ability Score Increase


20
+6
Extra Magic Attack (3)



HP: 1d8 + Con mod
Armor & Shields: Light Armor, No Shields
Weapons: Simple Melee, Crossbows, and Darts.
Saving Throws: Intelligence and Wisdom
Skill Profs: As Normal Wizard
Starting equipment: As normal.

Spell Caster: You gain 3 attack cantrips from the Wizard spell list that can be used at will. Your cantrips add your intelligence modifier to the damage. Cantrips do not level up based on your level. All cantrips have an attack roll versus AC. 1d20 + Int + Prof is your attack roll. If you roll a one you auto miss if you roll a 20 you crit. Cantrips that offer saves become attack roll cantrips choice of starting cantrips.

Wizard Schools You must be wielding an Arcane Focus to gain the benefit of your wizard school.

Abjuration: You gain +1 AC.

Conjuration: Range cantrip attacks deal +2 damage.

Evocation: Touch or Self cantrip attacks deal +2 damage.

Necromancy: Your magic sucks additional life from a target. When you roll a 1 on a damage die on a cantrip attack you may roll that die again. You must take the second result even if it is a 1.

Illusion: When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you within 5' of you, you may use your reaction to cast a small illusion and distract the attacker. The attacker gains disadvantage on the attack roll.

Duel Caster: When you use Duel Casting you may add your Int modifier to the damage roll of the second cantrip attack.

When you use a cantrip with a range of "Touch" you may make a second attack as a bonus action with the same cantrip. This damage does not add your Int modifier. The cantrip only deal damage of its type and does not inflict any rider effects.

Action Surge: As standard ability. Gain two uses at level 13 and a third use at level 17. You may use this ability once per short or long rest.

Extra Magical Attack: When you use an action to attack with a cantrip or spell you may make one additional attack. At level 11 and 20 you gain a second and third additional magical attack for a total of 4 attacks per action. You must roll each attack seperately.

Any cabtrips used with extra magic attack only deal damage of its type and does not inflict any rider effects.

Arcane Surge: Whenever you fail a saving throw you can surge your magical energy allowing you a temporary window to break free. You gain a second saving throw to resist the effect once per long rest. You gain a second use of this ability at level 17.

Subclass: Arcane Champion

Devastating Spells (Lv. 3): Your cantrips that deal damage now critical on a roll of 19-20.

Brainiac (Lv. 7): You add half your proficiency bonus to any Int, Wis, or Cha ability check that doesn't already use your proficiency bonus.

Additionally when you take the Dash action you may move a number of extra feet equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Additional Wizard School (Lv. 10): At level 10 you may choose an additional wizard school. You may only benefit from one school for each cantrip you cast.

Apocalyptic Spells (Lv. 15): Your cantrips that deal damage critical on a roll of 18-20.

Arcane Regeneration (Lv. 18): On each of your turns if you have 1 HP but no more than half your HP, you regain 5 + Con mod HP at the start of tour turn.


Subclass: Archmage

Archmage Arcana (Lv. 3): At level three you learn three Archmage Arcana of your choice that you place in your spell book. An Archmage Arcana must be written in your spell book and you must study them to modify your cantrips with them.

You learn (and place in your spell book) two additional Archmage Arcana at level 7th, 10th, and 15th. Each time you learn a new arcana you may erase and write a new arcana in your spell book. You gain an additional spell slot at level 7 and 15.

Spell Slots: You gain 4 spell slots to modify your cantrips with. Each spell slot gives you a d8. When you use a Spell Slot your die is expended. You regain any spent spell slots after a short or long rest.

Saving Throw: When an Archmage Arcana calls for a saving throw the DC is 8 + Int Modifier + Prof. Bonus.

Mage of War (Lv. 3): At 3rd level you gain proficiency with one set of artisan tools of your choice.

Knowledge Arcana (Lv. 7): Starting at 7th level you may spend 1 minute to learn the magical properties of any creature you study. You learn the target's Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. You also lean any magical resistances, magical immunity, and magical vulnerabilities. You also learn total class levels and how many wizard levels (if any) the target has.

Improve Spell Slots (Lv. 10): At level 10 youl slots dice increase to 1d10 and at level 18 they increase to 1d12.

Relentless (Lv. 15): When you roll initiative and have no spell slots remaining you gain one spell slot.

Archmage Arcana

Replace battle master maneuver terms as follows.

Superiority Dice = Spell Slot

Weapon attack = cantrip attack
Range weapon attack = range cantrip attack.

Saving Throws: 8 + Int Mod + Proficiency Bonus

I'll rename maneuvers instead of duplicating them here, I'm not changing enough to feel comfortable with posting that much battle master info lol... Next to the names in parentheses is the saving throw type in order to resist an Arcana.

Commander's Strike = Haste
Disarming Strike = Knock (Str)
Distracting Strike = Flare (Wis)
Evasive Footwork = Expeditious Retreat
Feinting Attack = Programmed Illusion (Dex)
Goading Attack = Rage (Wis)
Lunge = Enlarge
Maneuvering Attack =
Menecing Attack = Phantasmal Force (Wis)
Parry = Shield
Precision Attack = Magic Missile
Pushing Attack = Telekinesis (Str or Dex)
Rally = Heroism
Riposte =
Sweeping Attack =
Trip Attack = Grease (Dex)

Using a spell slot to modify the cantrip Shocking grasp would give you, and I can't believe I ran into this one on accident, Grease Lightning. This cantrip would shock and drop a target... Ok I need to stop with this now lol.


More to come

====

Edit 3: So this is all magic can do with the wizard. If you see how limiting this is compared to a normal wizard then you see how people like me view the current fighter in 5e.

This wizard can be useful, no doubt about it. However, it isn't as interesting or awesome as a normal wizard.

I'm still working on this and cleaning things up but I'm on the right path now. Not sure what I was thinking when I thought burning hands would be a good idea for this wizard, that is way too good for this ideology.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Inverse Fighter (Warlock Base)

Proficiencies
Armor: All Armor and Shields
Weapons: All
Tools:

Saving Throws: Strength and Constitution
Skills: As Fighter

Worldy Patron: At first level your patron sends you into the world for you to fulfill your purpose. You have your choice of King, Hermit Master, or Underworld Boss. Your choice grants you features at 1st level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.

Pact Exploits
Due to your dedication your patron has bestowed upon you the secrete abilities known to them. The saving throw for your exploits is 8 + Prof Bonus + Str or Dex Modifier.

Minor Exploits: These exploits are simple and easy to learn and can be used as an action.

Pact Exploits: You create or learn stronger exploits as you level up. These take a lot out of you and you may only perform so many per short or long rest. You know 2 personal exploits at first level, these exploits are at stage 1. You gain additional personal exploits as you level up. The stage at which you can use these exploits increase as you level up. Refer to the Inverse Fighter table.

Personal Exploits: As you study your abilities you gain more power. At 2nd level and levels indicated on the inverse fighter table you create a new personal exploit. When you gain a level in Inverse Fighter you may forget one personal exploit and create another.

Pact Boon: At third level you gain a boon from your patron.

Chain: Your patron sends you a creature as a minion, slave, or retainer (depending on player choice). Somehow your patron always knows when you need one and if you need a new one. You gain a creature that normally would come from the find familiar spell, or you may receive an imp, pseudo dragon, quasit, or sprite.

(I'll reword this later)

Blade: You gain two magic weapons of your choice, one ranged and one melee. These deal 1d10 + Str or Dex modifier force damage. These items work as weapons only for you but they may be used as tools for others (such as to cut rope).

Tome: Your study has lead you to learn 2 additional minor exploits from an expanded list. Additionally anytime you learn a Pact Exploit you gain 1 additional known exploit.

ASI: At kevels indicated on the table you gain ASIs.

Taboo Exploits: These exploits put a huge strain on your body, ecen greater than pact exploits. Due to this danger these abilities have been considered taboo. You must finish a long rest before you nay use a Taboo Exploit again. As you level up you gain new and more powerful taboo exploits.

Worldly Patrons: Each worldly patron gives you an expanded exploit list. These exploits do not count against your exploit known number. Each patron also gives you abilities as you level.

King:

Hermit Master: Hermit's Blessing, Luck of the Master, Hermit' Resilience, Might Throw.

Mob Boss: Furious Presence, Quick Escape, Uncanny Defense, and Words of Delirium.

[SiuiS]

Fix the tables/formatting of the first one first. I would like to read this but can't as is, and it will be easier for you to do it now than to fix multiple wizards after the fact. :smallsmile:

[bloodshed343]

In my opinion, Vancian casting doesn't make sense. I would actually prefer it if casters were built more like martials using cantrips in place of melee attacks. They could also have utility cantrips. They would get more/better cantrips as they level. Spells like wish would exist as rituals with a huge component cost.

Also, everyone should have access to rituals. Caster classes would natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature. Learning new rituals should require a feat with a stat requirement. There could be half feats that grant you access to a certain class' rituals and bump that class' spell casting stat by 1. There could be a ritual master feat that requires the ability to cast rituals and an int of 12 and wis 12. It gives you access to all rituals.

The only problem with this is that tome pact warlock becomes de facto the best caster in the game.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Fix the tables/formatting of the first one first. I would like to read this but can't as is, and it will be easier for you to do it now than to fix multiple wizards after the fact. :smallsmile:

Yeah I did this on word and uploaded it late and didn't fix it yet.



In my opinion, Vancian casting doesn't make sense. I would actually prefer it if casters were built more like martials using cantrips in place of melee attacks. They could also have utility cantrips. They would get more/better cantrips as they level. Spells like wish would exist as rituals with a huge component cost.

Also, everyone should have access to rituals. Caster classes would natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature. Learning new rituals should require a feat with a stat requirement. There could be half feats that grant you access to a certain class' rituals and bump that class' spell casting stat by 1. There could be a ritual master feat that requires the ability to cast rituals and an int of 12 and wis 12. It gives you access to all rituals.

The only problem with this is that tome pact warlock becomes de facto the best caster in the game.

Magic above cantrips doesn't exist. Because no caster will have the ability to cast anything except cantrips you can just forget all the cool things magic can do.

Might allow 1st level rituals (only used as a ritual) in this set up but yeah no actual spells.

Because magic can't have very nice things (though cantrips give them nice things).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

In my opinion, Vancian casting doesn't make sense. I would actually prefer it if casters were built more like martials using cantrips in place of melee attacks. They could also have utility cantrips. They would get more/better cantrips as they level. Spells like wish would exist as rituals with a huge component cost.

Also, everyone should have access to rituals. Caster classes would natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature. Learning new rituals should require a feat with a stat requirement. There could be half feats that grant you access to a certain class' rituals and bump that class' spell casting stat by 1. There could be a ritual master feat that requires the ability to cast rituals and an int of 12 and wis 12. It gives you access to all rituals.

The only problem with this is that tome pact warlock becomes de facto the best caster in the game.


Also, I wanted to say that the tome pact will change a bit to not be so crazy.

But I agree that vancian is pretty stupid and serves no place in D&D other than a sacred cow that needs slaughtered.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Don't have much to say on the actual class; the designers give casters Nice Things and don't know how to make interesting and powerful martials, news at 11.

But I did want to comment on the side remarks on Vancian casting:


In my opinion, Vancian casting doesn't make sense.
[...]
Also, everyone should have access to rituals. Caster classes would natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature.


But I agree that vancian is pretty stupid and serves no place in D&D other than a sacred cow that needs slaughtered.

I'm not sure why many players tend to rave about rituals being cool and flavorful while ranting about Vancian casting being nonsensical and terrible, because flavor-wise they're exactly the same thing.

In both cases, to summon a demon you pull out your musty old tome, inscribe a mystical diagram on the floor, wave your arms in mystic gestures, and chant arcane syllables and the demon's name for an hour. If you proceed to immediately follow that up with ten more minutes of chanting and then call "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a minor demon appears in your magic circle, you've cast a demon summoning ritual.

If you instead proceed to magically lock the current state of the ritual away in your mind, go grab a quick breakfast, double-check the cold iron filigree in your mystical diagram, cast a dimensional anchor on the diagram to make it extra secure, then finally chant for ten minutes and call out "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a minor demon appears in your magic circle, you've just prepared and later cast a Vancian lesser planar binding. Making a class that "natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature" and also lets them store rituals to release later (as many people houseruled to fix the 4e ritual system) is literally the process that was used to create the Vancian spellcaster.

[MaxWilson]

Here is what the wizard would look like if we use the same standards for fantasy for it as the developers for 5e did for the fighter...

Actually, this magico-fighter is far worse than the fighter due to:

1.) Not getting heavy armor,
2.) Feats being better for weapon combat than spell combat. (See: Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Mastery.)
3.) Ranged combat heavily favoring weapons over spells due to range constraints on spells.

If you had a campaign where the only two options were the Battlemaster and your hypothetical wizard-fighter, all the optimizers would take Battlemasters. That means you're advancing a straw man argument.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Actually, this magico-fighter is far worse than the fighter due to:

1.) Not getting heavy armor,
2.) Feats being better for weapon combat than spell combat. (See: Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Mastery.)
3.) Ranged combat heavily favoring weapons over spells due to range constraints on spells.

If you had a campaign where the only two options were the Battlemaster and your hypothetical wizard-fighter, all the optimizers would take Battlemasters. That means you're advancing a straw man argument.

1: Wizard don't thematically get armor, gave them light because those heavy robes have to be a little troublesome to wear just like light armor would be. They still get to select spells that do more than just damage.

I'll add in blade ward as a cantrip and wizard can cast.

2: Actually the feats that do awesome things for spells tend to work wonders (ignore resistance for instance, weapon feats don't do that). I call your selection with Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Warcaster being awesome for spells.

3: Range spells can change up damage types and exploit weaknesses. Range weapons 90% of the time will deal piercing damage. Also, spells can't be sundered, stolen, or dropped.

This wizard is designed with the same idea as the Fighter, it has more versatility than the fighter but not as much consistent staying power (HP and saves).

But this is what you get when you make a wizard with the same ideology as the fighter.

[Amnoriath]

1: Wizard don't thematically get armor, gave them light because those heavy robes have to be a little troublesome to wear just like light armor would be. They still get to select spells that do more than just damage.

I'll add in blade ward as a cantrip and wizard can cast.

2: Actually the feats that do awesome things for spells tend to work wonders (ignore resistance for instance, weapon feats don't do that). I call your selection with Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Warcaster being awesome for spells.

3: Range spells can change up damage types and exploit weaknesses. Range weapons 90% of the time will deal piercing damage. Also, spells can't be sundered, stolen, or dropped.

This wizard is designed with the same idea as the Fighter, it has more versatility than the fighter but not as much consistent staying power (HP and saves).

But this is what you get when you make a wizard with the same ideology as the fighter.
1. No, this is a straw man because cantrips deal less damage than what weapons can do and even if they do they allow a save which is easier to ablate than not hit. Also no attack cantrip can trip, disarm, bring in allies, give advantage..etc.
2. Also none of those feats increase damage just better probability. Effectively all Elemental adept does is turn at best a 0-4 into a 2-8 on one energy, but what about immunity?(nothing) Warcaster is a feat tax to make cantrips act more like weapons but it still doesn't bridge it fully. While Spellwarp Sniper is decent but it is Sharpshooter without the extra damage option.
3. No, it doesn't because all you do is make them choose 3 energy damage rather than 3 physical with far less damage and thats it. Your Archmage still can't inflict any condition in battle and Battlemaster is laughing at how pitiful your damage out put is. Also the Battlemaster still has more superiority die than this has cantrip slots as well as a short rest mechanic rather than a day.
Really, this is just an insult to equate any non-caster to this. It seems to me you are a 4e enthusiast but if you are really interested in bridging the gap look for those certain spells and give utility powers to non-casters while casters have to maintain their spells or knowledge..etc. Give bonuses in the downtime while casters do whatever.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

But I did want to comment on the side remarks on Vancian casting:

I'm not sure why many players tend to rave about rituals being cool and flavorful while ranting about Vancian casting being nonsensical and terrible, because flavor-wise they're exactly the same thing.

In both cases, to summon a demon you pull out your musty old tome, inscribe a mystical diagram on the floor, wave your arms in mystic gestures, and chant arcane syllables and the demon's name for an hour. If you proceed to immediately follow that up with ten more minutes of chanting and then call "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a minor demon appears in your magic circle, you've cast a demon summoning ritual.

If you instead proceed to magically lock the current state of the ritual away in your mind, go grab a quick breakfast, double-check the cold iron filigree in your mystical diagram, cast a dimensional anchor on the diagram to make it extra secure, then finally chant for ten minutes and call out "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a minor demon appears in your magic circle, you've just prepared and later cast a Vancian lesser planar binding. Making a class that "natively have access to the rituals on their own list as a class feature" and also lets them store rituals to release later (as many people houseruled to fix the 4e ritual system) is literally the process that was used to create the Vancian spellcaster.


I'm not insane on rituals, but vancian casting has always bugged me. 5e's version is better than previous editions and it has a cool potential energy kinetic energy thing going on since 2e but there are two main reasons I absolutely hate it.

1: There are better systems out there and it is only kept around for the sake of keeping it around.

2: It is the primary reason that non-casters can't have nice things. And by that, I mean, giving casters X/day abilities that have awesome power makes people freak out when you introduce at will abilities. Because obviously (sarcasm), any at will ability is worth more than a x/day ability. This is what lead to the designers of 3.0 overvaluing BAB and devaluing spells.

People can't wrap their head around the at will abilities because of many reasons but I suspect they think that having at will abilities is unfair or unbalanced no matter how powerful the x/day abilities are.

Like the 3e warlock versus wizards. I've heard many many many people call the warlock broken cause it is at will. Also, way to many times I've heard the 3.5 PHB II Druid alternate class feature for the druid wildshape (shapeshift?) to be more broken than the core wildshape. The PHB 2 wildshape is actually a better balanced wildshape (which is where I assume paizo got the idea for their alter self line and other spells like that).

I can rant more but... Vancian casting needs to just go, even in its current form.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

1. No, this is a straw man because cantrips deal less damage than what weapons can do and even if they do they allow a save which is easier to ablate than not hit. Also no attack cantrip can trip, disarm, bring in allies, give advantage..etc.
2. Also none of those feats increase damage just better probability. Effectively all Elemental adept does is turn at best a 0-4 into a 2-8 on one energy, but what about immunity?(nothing) Warcaster is a feat tax to make cantrips act more like weapons but it still doesn't bridge it fully. While Spellwarp Sniper is decent but it is Sharpshooter without the extra damage option.
3. No, it doesn't because all you do is make them choose 3 energy damage rather than 3 physical with far less damage and thats it. Your Archmage still can't inflict any condition in battle and Battlemaster is laughing at how pitiful your damage out put is. Also the Battlemaster still has more superiority die than this has cantrip slots as well as a short rest mechanic rather than a day.
Really, this is just an insult to equate any non-caster to this. It seems to me you are a 4e enthusiast but if you are really interested in bridging the gap look for those certain spells and give utility powers to non-casters while casters have to maintain their spells or knowledge..etc. Give bonuses in the downtime while casters do whatever.

Cantrips deal in this makeup between 1d6+Int modifier damage to 1d10+Int modifier damage. I'm not sure why you think weapons deal more damage.

Feats are also optional. Also there are plenty of enemies immune/resistance to nonmagical weapon damage and there is no way in the game as of yet to get over weapon damage resistance. There is no feat taxes in 5e, hell feats are optional.

Did you not read my work? The archmage regains spell slots per short or long rest. I need to clean up the wording but they can use the extra spell attack feature to fire off cantrips (which the spells are cantrips) when they attack. They should gain the same number of spell slots as a fighter has dice.

The only insult here is that you didn't read my work, ignore the point of this work, and then called it an insult.

[Giant2005]

Actually, this magico-fighter is far worse than the fighter due to:

1.) Not getting heavy armor,
2.) Feats being better for weapon combat than spell combat. (See: Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Mastery.)
3.) Ranged combat heavily favoring weapons over spells due to range constraints on spells.

If you had a campaign where the only two options were the Battlemaster and your hypothetical wizard-fighter, all the optimizers would take Battlemasters. That means you're advancing a straw man argument.

You forgot number 4.

4.) The Archmage is rubbish compared to the Battlemaster and effectively doesn't do a single thing. The extra 4 limited use cantrips just replace the cantrips you are already using without limit so what is the point of the subclass at all? The Battlemaster's abilities add to the Battlemaster's damage whereas the Archemage's replace their damage for no net gain. It is rubbish and not even close to being a proper comparison.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

You forgot number 4.

4.) The Archmage is rubbish compared to the Battlemaster and effectively doesn't do a single thing. The extra 4 limited use cantrips just replace the cantrips you are already using without limit so what is the point of the subclass at all? The Battlemaster's abilities add to the Battlemaster's damage whereas the Archemage's replace their damage for no net gain. It is rubbish and not even close to being a proper comparison.

First off, the archmage only gains 3 cantrips used at will. Cantrips gained later are usable in spell slots. The Archmage (should at least) gain a number of spell slots equal to the number of dice the fighter gains.

The archmage is the battle master. This is what the battle master looks to people who can see through the crap they wrote down on the pages.

This isn't meant to keep up with the battle master or be better than the battle master but to show how much it sucks to use the same ideology when making the wizard.

People who have problems with this should have problems with the fighter too since they are pretty much identical.

[MaxWilson]

1: Wizard don't thematically get armor, gave them light because those heavy robes have to be a little troublesome to wear just like light armor would be. They still get to select spells that do more than just damage.

I'll add in blade ward as a cantrip and wizard can cast.

2: Actually the feats that do awesome things for spells tend to work wonders (ignore resistance for instance, weapon feats don't do that). I call your selection with Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Warcaster being awesome for spells.

3: Range spells can change up damage types and exploit weaknesses. Range weapons 90% of the time will deal piercing damage. Also, spells can't be sundered, stolen, or dropped.

This wizard is designed with the same idea as the Fighter, it has more versatility than the fighter but not as much consistent staying power (HP and saves).

But this is what you get when you make a wizard with the same ideology as the fighter.

1.) It may be "thematic" that your fighter-wizard only gets light armor, but it is still a weakness without a compensating advantage. If you're trying to win an archery duel it matters very much whether you have AC 12 or AC 18/20. (I was going to write "AC 13 or AC 18" and then I realized your fighterwizard doesn't get Mage Armor.) Having decent AC can double your survivability.

2.) While Prestidigitation is indeed a cool cantrip and lots of fun, it doesn't really constitute a whole class in itself. (Besides, Eldritch Knights can already take Prestidigitation if they want to, so why would I ever take your fighter-wizard?)

3.) Elemental Adept is not nearly comparable to Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter can double your damage output; Elemental Adept merely prevents it from being halved, under certain circumstances, and grants a +1-ish bonus to damage.

Warcaster is useless to the fighterwizard as you've written it, because he doesn't have any spells to concentrate on in the first place nor a shield that he wants to wield at the same time as a weapon. The only benefit he gets out of it is getting to use his spells on his opportunity attacks, which is something that a regular fighter gets for free.

Spell Sniper is a good feat for warlocks, but comparing your fighterwizard with Spell Sniper to a regular fighter with Sharpshooter it quickly becomes apparent that Sharpshooter offers everything Spell Sniper does plus the chance to (approximately) double your damage.

So you've "called my selection" by naming three feats that are objectively worse for your fighterwizard than Spell Sniper/GWM are for a regular fighter. You're not helping your case.

4.) Changing up damage types is nice sometimes, but not as nice as the ability to straight-up ignore all resistances/immunities. (You understand what I'm talking about here, right? Nothing in the game is immune to an arrow show from a Longbow +1, and few of them are even immune to an arrow from a regular longbow.) Can you even name three monsters against which piercing damage is bad?

Unlike a fighter (Eldritch Knight), your fighterwizard doesn't even have the option to enhance his attacks (Magic Weapon spell) to penetrate immunities. If your fighterwizard meets a Rakshasa, all he can do is hide behind others or run away.

Finally and most importantly, 5.) you've ignored the single best thing about ranged weapons in 5E: they outrange spells and most attacks. You can take your little fighterwizard with Spell Sniper, and I'll take my Eldritch Knight (or Champion or whatever) with his Longbow, and guess what? I can still kill you from a range at which you cannot possibly reply. Even with Spell Sniper, your best attacks only go 80 yards, whereas I can kill you from 200 yards. My tactical flexibility is immensely greater than yours if we duel--and if we're on the same team, my chance of not-getting-roasted-alive-by-dragonbreath is also greater than yours because unlike you, I can fight from outside the dragon's effective range. Using legendary actions, a dragon can move 240 feet in a round and still attack, so the fighterwizard is totally incapable of engaging from a safe distance. My Eldritch Knight on the other hand can outrange and outmove the dragon, and even a battlemaster or a champion can still outrange it and get in a couple rounds of arrows before closing to melee range.

Face it, the fighterwizard as you've designed it is pathetic compared to a real fighter.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

1.) It may be "thematic" that your fighter-wizard only gets light armor, but it is still a weakness without a compensating advantage. If you're trying to win an archery duel it matters very much whether you have AC 12 or AC 18/20. (I was going to write "AC 13 or AC 18" and then I realized your fighterwizard doesn't get Mage Armor.) Having decent AC can double your survivability.

2.) While Prestidigitation is indeed a cool cantrip and lots of fun, it doesn't really constitute a whole class in itself. (Besides, Eldritch Knights can already take Prestidigitation if they want to, so why would I ever take your fighter-wizard?)

3.) Elemental Adept is not nearly comparable to Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter can double your damage output; Elemental Adept merely prevents it from being halved, under certain circumstances, and grants a +1-ish bonus to damage.

Warcaster is useless to the fighterwizard as you've written it, because he doesn't have any spells to concentrate on in the first place nor a shield that he wants to wield at the same time as a weapon. The only benefit he gets out of it is getting to use his spells on his opportunity attacks, which is something that a regular fighter gets for free.

Spell Sniper is a good feat for warlocks, but comparing your fighterwizard with Spell Sniper to a regular fighter with Sharpshooter it quickly becomes apparent that Sharpshooter offers everything Spell Sniper does plus the chance to (approximately) double your damage.

So you've "called my selection" by naming three feats that are objectively worse for your fighterwizard than Spell Sniper/GWM are for a regular fighter. You're not helping your case.

4.) Changing up damage types is nice sometimes, but not as nice as the ability to straight-up ignore all resistances/immunities. (You understand what I'm talking about here, right? Nothing in the game is immune to an arrow show from a Longbow +1, and few of them are even immune to an arrow from a regular longbow.) Can you even name three monsters against which piercing damage is bad?

Unlike a fighter (Eldritch Knight), your fighterwizard doesn't even have the option to enhance his attacks (Magic Weapon spell) to penetrate immunities. If your fighterwizard meets a Rakshasa, all he can do is hide behind others or run away.

Finally and most importantly, 5.) you've ignored the single best thing about ranged weapons in 5E: they outrange spells and most attacks. You can take your little fighterwizard with Spell Sniper, and I'll take my Eldritch Knight (or Champion or whatever) with his Longbow, and guess what? I can still kill you from a range at which you cannot possibly reply. Even with Spell Sniper, your best attacks only go 80 yards, whereas I can kill you from 200 yards. My tactical flexibility is immensely greater than yours if we duel--and if we're on the same team, my chance of not-getting-roasted-alive-by-dragonbreath is also greater than yours because unlike you, I can fight from outside the dragon's effective range. Using legendary actions, a dragon can move 240 feet in a round and still attack, so the fighterwizard is totally incapable of engaging from a safe distance. My Eldritch Knight on the other hand can outrange and outmove the dragon, and even a battlemaster or a champion can still outrange it and get in a couple rounds of arrows before closing to melee range.

Face it, the fighterwizard as you've designed it is pathetic compared to a real fighter.

It isn't that this is pathetic, just making a class with this ideology is pathetic.

Working on another thing right now but the EK doesn't exist if this is in play, didn't think I would have to spell that one out...

So on my first-ish try I finally made magic user comparable to the fighter. Sure the wizard can't do everything at once but neither can the fighter.

Good.

Still working on a few things with this but as is it is about the same level as the fighter.

[MaxWilson]

It isn't that this is pathetic, just making a class with this ideology is pathetic.

Working on another thing right now but the EK doesn't exist if this is in play, didn't think I would have to spell that one out...

So on my first-ish try I finally made magic user comparable to the fighter. Sure the wizard can't do everything at once but neither can the fighter.

Good.

Still working on a few things with this but as is it is about the same level as the fighter.

No, this guy isn't comparable to the fighter. That's why I would always take the fighter over this guy. This guy is totally gimped compared to the fighter. Hence, "straw man."

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I'm not insane on rituals, but vancian casting has always bugged me. 5e's version is better than previous editions and it has a cool potential energy kinetic energy thing going on since 2e but there are two main reasons I absolutely hate it.

1: There are better systems out there and it is only kept around for the sake of keeping it around.

I disagree that other systems are inherently "better" and that Vancian doesn't have its place, as every system has its tradeoffs. Every system has something it does better than Vancian casting, for example:

Shadowrun's drain casting gives fine-grained control over spell power at a corresponding cost;
Point-based systems give you more granular control over your spell output over time;
Ars Magica's freeform magic allows lots of creativity in spell construction;
The various FATE magic systems are completely integrated with and balanced with non-magic;
GURPS Magic gives you maximum customization when building your character;
HERO handles open-ended but thematically restricted powers (like "fire mage" or "telekinetic" or "Green Lantern") very well;
and so forth, but each also has something that it does worse than Vancian casting:

Shadowrun's drain casting can be gamed to the point of basically "free" spellcasting if you optimize it or can kill you easily if you don't optimize it;
Point-based systems let you go nova much more easily than Vancian ever could and accurate point costs are very hard to assign;
Ars Magica's freeform magic has the problem that no two people can agree on what exactly Creo Herbam should be able to do or which of the fifteen possible noun/verb combos for weather magic is the "right" one;
FATE "magic" is just a reflavoring of non-magic mechanics and can get stale fast;
GURPS Magic doesn't work well past early Renaissance era games because you pay a lot of points for ranged-attack spells and long-range communication spells even when primitive guns and cell phones exist;
HERO magic makes it laughably easy to break the game in half with the right power choices;
and so forth, and it's just a matter of which system has the most appropriate advantages and most easily mitigated drawbacks for a particular game.

For a game like D&D that is one of the most popular games out there and that strives to be easy to pick up and play for newbies and easy for existing players to move between tables without too much re-adjustment, a magic system that's very simple to explain, gives well-defined outputs without any complex math, requires little to no DM adjudication for most spell effects (illusions being the major exception), and requires little system mastery to choose spells that fit with your character concept and won't kill you when you cast them is actually quite ideal.


2: It is the primary reason that non-casters can't have nice things. And by that, I mean, giving casters X/day abilities that have awesome power makes people freak out when you introduce at will abilities. Because obviously (sarcasm), any at will ability is worth more than a x/day ability. This is what lead to the designers of 3.0 overvaluing BAB and devaluing spells.

People can't wrap their head around the at will abilities because of many reasons but I suspect they think that having at will abilities is unfair or unbalanced no matter how powerful the x/day abilities are.

Like the 3e warlock versus wizards. I've heard many many many people call the warlock broken cause it is at will. Also, way to many times I've heard the 3.5 PHB II Druid alternate class feature for the druid wildshape (shapeshift?) to be more broken than the core wildshape. The PHB 2 wildshape is actually a better balanced wildshape (which is where I assume paizo got the idea for their alter self line and other spells like that).

I can rant more but... Vancian casting needs to just go, even in its current form.

Let's be real, now: none of that has anything to do with Vancian casting and everything to do with the facts that (A) the designers don't like giving Nice Things to noncasters and (B) the vast majority of players can't judge balance very well.

Regarding the former, D&D is far from the only game where noncasters don't get Nice Things; in fact, I can't think of any system off the top of my head where characters without some sort of power source (magic, psionics, supernatural heritage, whatever) don't get the short end of the stick compared to characters with a power source. The current crop of D&D designers would be screwing over fighters no matter what mechanics the wizards and clerics used for their magic.

Regarding the latter, people freaked out about the warlock's and shapeshift druid's at-will abilities even though they were on the weak side, they freaked out about psionics and incarnum (mostly due to not reading the rules about augmentation and investment limits) despite powers and soulmelds not being as broken as spells, they freaked out about Tome of Battle because it was "too anime" and "gave fighters spellcasting," and the list goes on. Slotted use-limited spells don't make people freak out because they see unbalanced mechanics everywhere, people who don't bother to understand the rules and actually playtest things make themselves freak out.

You see exactly the same lack of ability to analyze power tradeoffs in systems without Vancian casting, except it's things like "No fair! Physical adepts get both magic and cyberware! Broken!" in Shadowrun (spoiler: they're not broken at all, they're like paladins and rangers, dabbling in both magic and martial stuff and excelling at neither) or "No fair! Potence is one of the most powerful disciplines in the game for a combat character and it puts clan-specific disciplines to shame! Broken!" in Vampire (spoiler: it's not, in fact putting any dots into it at all means you're behind someone who just spent points on Strength), and so on. Blaming Vancian magic for the incompetence of the current D&D designers and the failings of human nature is hardly fair.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

No, this guy isn't comparable to the fighter. That's why I would always take the fighter over this guy. This guy is totally gimped compared to the fighter. Hence, "straw man."

Yeah, look up why yelling strawmen outside the debate club doesn't matter.

[Amnoriath]

Cantrips deal in this makeup between 1d6+Int modifier damage to 1d10+Int modifier damage. I'm not sure why you think weapons deal more damage.

Feats are also optional. Also there are plenty of enemies immune/resistance to nonmagical weapon damage and there is no way in the game as of yet to get over weapon damage resistance. There is no feat taxes in 5e, hell feats are optional.

Did you not read my work? The archmage regains spell slots per short or long rest. I need to clean up the wording but they can use the extra spell attack feature to fire off cantrips (which the spells are cantrips) when they attack. They should gain the same number of spell slots as a fighter has dice.

The only insult here is that you didn't read my work, ignore the point of this work, and then called it an insult.

1. No wizard cantrip deals a d10 base damage that uses an attack roll. Only poison spray deals a d12 but that is against a con. save. Conversely weapons do deal d10, d12, and 2d6 also there is magical bonuses. You also say nothing in that you add your intelligence modifier.
2. Oh yes ignore the fact that your challenge was met and beaten.
3. Again you don't say that as the Battlemaster gains 6(7 with feat). Maybe you changed the rest part but it still doesn't ignore that Battlemaster adds to damage or bonuses as well as something new with what could be done with an attack.

[CrusaderJoe]

1. No wizard cantrip deals a d10 base damage that uses an attack roll. Only poison spray deals a d12 but that is against a con. save. Conversely weapons do deal d10, d12, and 2d6 also there is magical bonuses. You also say nothing in that you add your intelligence modifier.
2. Oh yes ignore the fact that your challenge was met and beaten.
3. Again you don't say that as the Battlemaster gains 6(7 with feat). Maybe you changed the rest part but it still doesn't ignore that Battlemaster adds to damage or bonuses as well as something new with what could be done with an attack.

Yo, pretty sure this... Is in the OP...

"Spell Casting: You gain 3 attack cantrips from the Wizard spell list that can be used at will. Your cantrips add your intelligence modifier to the damage. Cantrips do not level up based on your level. All cantrips have an attack roll versus AC. 1d20 + Int + Prof is your attack roll. If you roll a one you auto miss if you roll a 20 you crit. Cantrips that offer saves become attack roll cantrips choice of starting cantrips."

Try the second sentence in that line.

Also the archmagebhas damage increases by 1 and then 2 steps at level 10 & 18 like the Fighter has with their dice...

Seriously dude, calm down and read before you get all uppity.

[Logosloki]

1. No wizard cantrip deals a d10 base damage that uses an attack roll. Only poison spray deals a d12 but that is against a con. save. Conversely weapons do deal d10, d12, and 2d6 also there is magical bonuses. You also say nothing in that you add your intelligence modifier.
2. Oh yes ignore the fact that your challenge was met and beaten.
3. Again you don't say that as the Battlemaster gains 6(7 with feat). Maybe you changed the rest part but it still doesn't ignore that Battlemaster adds to damage or bonuses as well as something new with what could be done with an attack.

Not to rain on your parade but the spell you are looking for is firebolt. Cantrip, 1d10 fire damage, Requires a ranged attack roll. That being said, this "class" is a bit silly, after all it is based on battlemaster but battlemaster is a subclass, shouldn't the class be based on fighter then given a battlemaster, champion and eldritch knight tree?

[CrusaderJoe]

Not to rain on your parade but the spell you are looking for is firebolt. Cantrip, 1d10 fire damage, Requires a ranged attack roll. That being said, this "class" is a bit silly, after all it is based on battlemaster but battlemaster is a subclass, shouldn't the class be based on fighter then given a battlemaster, champion and eldritch knight tree?

I think the archmage was based on battle master, the first version only had battle master version of this mage.

Later the champion wizard showed up.

[Logosloki]

re: wizarding schools

Abjuration just says that when you aren't wearing armour you are wearing leather armour.

Conjuration too good man.

Evocation should be worded thusly: You are able to evoke a bit more power into shocking grasp. You deal +2 damage when you cast shocking grasp while wielding an arcane focus.

Necromancy too good man.


Also, I look forward to the warlock styled like a rogue. I want to see how you can make a pretty broken caster into a pretty broken martial.

[CrusaderJoe]

re: wizarding schools

Abjuration just says that when you aren't wearing armour you are wearing leather armour.

Conjuration too good man.

Evocation should be worded thusly: You are able to evoke a bit more power into shocking grasp. You deal +2 damage when you cast shocking grasp while wielding an arcane focus.

Necromancy too good man.


Also, I look forward to the warlock styled like a rogue. I want to see how you can make a pretty broken caster into a pretty broken martial.

I've been keeping my eye on this class so I can let you know that when Abjuration was created the Wizard didn't get armor. Armor was a recent addition to it.

[Amnoriath]

Yo, pretty sure this... Is in the OP...

"Spell Casting: You gain 3 attack cantrips from the Wizard spell list that can be used at will. Your cantrips add your intelligence modifier to the damage. Cantrips do not level up based on your level. All cantrips have an attack roll versus AC. 1d20 + Int + Prof is your attack roll. If you roll a one you auto miss if you roll a 20 you crit. Cantrips that offer saves become attack roll cantrips choice of starting cantrips."

Try the second sentence in that line.

Also the archmagebhas damage increases by 1 and then 2 steps at level 10 & 18 like the Fighter has with their dice...

Seriously dude, calm down and read before you get all uppity.

1. It doesn't say anything about adding Intelligence to damage which was just one of my points. So currently we are looking at most 1d8 consistently.
2. All that does is increase the base damage of the slotted ones, not his base attack cantrips which are used instead of them. A Battlemaster increases the added damage on top of inflicted conditions, advantages, bringing in allies..etc.
3. It still has 2 less slots than superiority die at base.
I am not being uppity I am holding him to his facetious and false points in the class as well as subclasses since this is the only reason he is doing this.

[CrusaderJoe]

1. It doesn't say anything about adding Intelligence to damage which was just one of my points. So currently we are looking at most 1d8 consistently.
2. All that does is increase the base damage of the slotted ones, not his base attack cantrips which are used instead of them. A Battlemaster increases the added damage on top of inflicted conditions, advantages, bringing in allies..etc.
3. It still has 2 less slots than superiority die at base.
I am not being uppity I am holding him to his facetious and false points in the class as well as subclasses since this is the only reason he is doing this.

I'm sorry but you either are just messing with me and everyone else or you don't want to read.

It clearly states under wizard class features that you add +Int mod to damage. Spell Caster is not under the archmage subtype but the wizard class.

The battle master wizard has +Int mod (wizard class feature) and increase base damage.

2 less than the fighter? So what it isn't like this is finished.

Seriously dude read before ranting, it looks bad when you don't.

[Amnoriath]

I'm sorry but you either are just messing with me and everyone else or you don't want to read.

It clearly states under wizard class features that you add +Int mod to damage. Spell Caster is not under the archmage subtype but the wizard class.

The battle master wizard has +Int mod (wizard class feature) and increase base damage.

2 less than the fighter? So what it isn't like this is finished.

Seriously dude read before ranting, it looks bad when you don't.

Well the fact is he changed it when I first commented and this is what the Archmage says for that. "At level 10 your cantrips used in spell slots increase their damage dice by one step. At level 18 they increase by another step." So no it isn't at all in comparison to what a Battlemaster is doing. Also an offense based "wizard" he is probably at an 80 health disadvantage(if not more) in comparison to to dex. based fighter if they try to match dexterity. Besides he isn't trying to "finish" and actually be proud of what he made or learned. He is doing this out of spite because the designers went away from 4e equivocation.

[CrusaderJoe]

It was edited last night at 1am...

Yeah I'm done, comment all you want but I'm not dealing with you anymore if you going to try and pull that crap.

[bloodshed343]

I tried to come up with my own spellcasting system similar to 4e rituals. I added an exhaustion system so that you couldn't spam rituals like fabricate to make a profit. It ended up remarkably similar to the Vancian system, except spells took longer to cast and cost quite a bit more components. So, I can't think of anything better than Vancian really.

[Giant2005]

First off, the archmage only gains 3 cantrips used at will. Cantrips gained later are usable in spell slots. The Archmage (should at least) gain a number of spell slots equal to the number of dice the fighter gains.

The archmage is the battle master. This is what the battle master looks to people who can see through the crap they wrote down on the pages.

This isn't meant to keep up with the battle master or be better than the battle master but to show how much it sucks to use the same ideology when making the wizard.

People who have problems with this should have problems with the fighter too since they are pretty much identical.

I'm not a fan of the Battlemaster due to my disdain for limited use abilities but my dislike of the Battlemaster has nothing at all to do with my dislike of the Archmage.
The Battlemaster at least has a function. As a Battlemaster you have the choice of doing weapon damage, or weapon damage + limited Superiority die damage + limited effect.
As an Archmage you have the choice of doing a Cantrip or a limited Cantrip. It is stupid and not comparable in the slightest - the Battlemaster's Superiority Die enhances the default whereas the Archmage's version replaces the default with something parallel to the default.

[Ziegander]

It was edited last night at 1am...

Yeah I'm done, comment all you want but I'm not dealing with you anymore if you going to try and pull that crap.

The overall point, Amnoriath's mistakes notwithstanding, is still valid. SpawnOfMorbo set out to create a Wizard using the same design principles as WotC used to build the 5e Fighter. He did so to prove that the 5e Fighter is somehow a pathetic piece of design worthy only of spite and disdain to be used by fools whose intellects are too malnourished to handle playing a 5e Wizard. Unfortunately, he failed on all fronts, because his resulting design falls FAR short of the power level and even versatility of the 5e Fighter, yet he stubbornly holds to the incorrect notion that the extremely low power level in his resulting design is either a match for the 5e Fighter or only slightly lower and made up for in versatility.

He then tries to mask his failure by adding that, if his resulting class is pathetic, then so is the 5e Fighter, because he followed the same design principles. He insists that it is those principles that are pathetic, not his design. Of course this ignores that his class is far less useful and functional than the 5e Fighter, so his argument and his "demonstration," if you must call it that, is inherently worthless.

[CrusaderJoe]

I'm not a fan of the Battlemaster due to my disdain for limited use abilities but my dislike of the Battlemaster has nothing at all to do with my dislike of the Archmage.
The Battlemaster at least has a function. As a Battlemaster you have the choice of doing weapon damage, or weapon damage + limited Superiority die damage + limited effect.
As an Archmage you have the choice of doing a Cantrip or a limited Cantrip. It is stupid and not comparable in the slightest - the Battlemaster's Superiority Die enhances the default whereas the Archmage's version replaces the default with something parallel to the default.

From my reading of the archmage, the cantrips used in spell slots don't have to be attack cantrips. You can pick up Friends and use it in a spell slot.

It is totally comparable, why? Because they both use the same basic mechanic. Sure this still needs a few tweaks but what the fighter does is attack + damage + maybe an effect and the wizard is doing attack + damage + maybe an effect.

For me, with this, the spell slots should use first level spells. Sure you will give up some damage based on the spells you are using but the versitility will far outstrip the fighter. Giving up damage for Sleep or Charm person is a good option.

However then you won't be using the same ideology as the fighter. The fighter isn't allowed interesting abilities and is almost pigeon hold (pigeon held?) into being a striker (damage damage damage).

The moral of the story is that the wizard sucks if you use the same idea on it as you do with the fighter... Just like the fighter sucks if you use that same idea. Now if you made a fighter with real interesting and awesome abilities just think how badly the current fighter will seam in comparison... Just as bad as what you think this wizard is.

[Giant2005]

It is totally comparable, why? Because they both use the same basic mechanic. Sure this still needs a few tweaks but what the fighter does is attack + damage + maybe an effect and the wizard is doing attack + damage + maybe an effect.
Cantrips do comparable damage to other cantrips.
Battlemaster Maneuvers do more damage than regular attacks.
The Battlemaster maneuvers add to the damage compared to his default attack.
The Archmage Cantrips do not add any damage compared to their default attack (Cantrips).

It would be comparable if the Battlemaster only did weapon damage + effect but that simply isn't the case. It would also be comparable if the Archmage allowed the Double Standard Wizard to cast two cantrips - his default plus his limited use Archmage one. The difference is that the Battlemaster's abilities add to his attack whereas the Archmage currently replaces his attack.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Cantrips do comparable damage to other cantrips.
Battlemaster Maneuvers do more damage than regular attacks.
The Battlemaster maneuvers add to the damage compared to his default attack.
The Archmage Cantrips do not add any damage compared to their default attack (Cantrips).

It would be comparable if the Battlemaster only did weapon damage + effect but that simply isn't the case. It would also be comparable if the Archmage allowed the Double Standard Wizard to cast two cantrips - his default plus his limited use Archmage one. The difference is that the Battlemaster's abilities add to his attack whereas the Archmage currently replaces his attack.

Well they did increase cantrip base damage but that doesn't matter.

Take a gander at the changes.

I figured out what I was doing wrong, I got into the habit of thinking of letting the archmage use spells like a wizard instead of using spells like a battle master.

[Ziegander]

The moral of the story is that the wizard sucks if you use the same idea on it as you do with the fighter... Just like the fighter sucks if you use that same idea. Now if you made a fighter with real interesting and awesome abilities just think how badly the current fighter will seam in comparison... Just as bad as what you think this wizard is.

That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Seriously, you can't back either of these statements up with facts, and neither can SpawnOfMorbo. You and the OP begin the discussion already thoroughly convinced that the Fighter sucks, and the OP then designs a Wizard that's "the same" as the Fighter, except it is demonstrably a LOT worse in several ways. That's not proof that the actual 5e Fighter sucks. It's not even compelling evidence.

Now, like Seerow posted on these boards many months ago, I do believe that 5e probably ought to have published a "basic Wizard/Cleric/Druid," that did not get spell slots per day and acted probably a lot more like the 3e Warlock or something, and then added the "optional rules module" for vancian casting which offers Greater ComplexityTM (otherwise known as Nice ThingsTM) as a splatbook or something. But this blowing up into Greater ComplexityTM would be offered alongside other options to give non-casters Greater ComplexityTM with their own splat(s) allowing rules for really complex grid movement and teamwork/tactical powers and tome of battle style maneuvers and lots of fun stuff like that to bring options and versatility to non-casters as well. But alas, they didn't. But here's the important takeaway: that doesn't mean that the design they chose for the 5e Fighter is some piece of crap like you two are claiming. I haven't played high levels of 5e yet, I don't know how that works, but so far I've seen drastically reigned in spellcasting and beefed up non-casters. In fact, non-casters in 5e get some of the most powerful abilities I've ever seen, abilities that in 3e would have been 17th-20th level abilities, and they get them at 1st or 2nd level. What are you complaining about exactly?

[SpawnOfMorbo]

That's just, like, your opinion, man.



The point many people make with the option is that it sucks because the fighter doesn't have interesting or awesome abilities.

The fighter, and really noncasters in general, are not fantasy characters in a fantasy world. They have been nerfed to the point they are mundane characters in a fantasy world.

That is a flaw for the number 1 fantasy name out there. You are forcing tables to play a game where caster classes are fantasy running around in a fantasy world while noncasters are mundane running around a fantasy world.

There is a huge difference between being able to do fantasy stuff and just being plopped down into a fantasy setting.

But none of that matters here.

The fighter is useful just as it was in 3.5, swing a stick and kill stuff. The battlemaster is pathetic not because it can't keep up with being a murder hobo, no they do a good job at that, but because they don't get interesting and awesome abilities to make it worth using a resource mechanic.

The fighter doesn't have to be soecifically complicated or simple, just give him some interesting and awesome options that doesn't turn him into a caster. Options that aren't just a ham fisted striker mechanic that attempts to be more than it really is.

The battle master could have been fantastic but they chose to make it suck.

[Ziegander]

The fighter, and really noncasters in general, are not fantasy characters in a fantasy world. They have been nerfed to the point they are mundane characters in a fantasy world.

Nerfed compared to what? Compared to 4e? The 5e Fighter is literally stronger than it has ever been in any edition. Shrugging off lots of damage as a swift bonus action two or three times a day isn't fantasy enough for you? You're right, real people can fight past getting hit in the chest with a greataxe. Acting and moving twice as fast as any other humanoid or creature possibly can two or three times per day isn't fantasy enough for you (or four or six, depending on level)? Oh, but he can't do anything a normal person couldn't do with his impossibly fantastical speed, so it's still mundane stuck in Narnia. I guess you're right, Fighters are just not cut out for this fantasy thing.


That is a flaw for the number 1 fantasy name out there. You are forcing tables to play a game where caster classes are fantasy running around in a fantasy world while noncasters are mundane running around a fantasy world.

Barbarians can block bullets with their chests, ignore half the damage from any attack while they rage, and fight through death itself. Monks. I shouldn't even have to say anything else. Cunning Action is one of the coolest and most powerful class features in any edition of D&D. Rogues get it at 2nd level. Evasion needs no explanation for why it's thoroughly fantasy.


The battle master could have been fantastic but they chose to make it suck.

You think it sucks. There's plenty of people who disagree. I agree that it could have been much more, and I wish they'd had the guts to go further with it, but I definitely don't think it sucks. I definitely see that there is a lot of awesome in those maneuvers.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

In fact, non-casters in 5e get some of the most powerful abilities I've ever seen, abilities that in 3e would have been 17th-20th level abilities, and they get them at 1st or 2nd level.

And these amazing abilities would be...? I just went through the PHB looking at noncaster class features, and I didn't see anything in the first 5 or 6 levels that would have been particularly impressive in 3e, much less abilities at 1st or 2nd level that wouldn't come online until 17th+ in 3e. Things get slightly better at higher levels, but I still don't see anything to write home about by 3e standards. 5e martial types are definitely less screwed-over in the skills and utility department, but I think you're drastically overstating their power levels otherwise.

EDIT: You posted while I was writing the above. Let's take a look:


Barbarians can block bullets with their chests,

You're referring to their Con to AC, I assume? X stat to AC isn't particularly impressive or rare in 3e; monks get Wis to AC at 1st, paladins get Cha to AC with an ACF at 2nd.


ignore half the damage from any attack while they rage,

That would certainly be something nice in 3e, but (A) considering the drastically lower damage values in 5e it's not really the equivalent of half damage in 3e, where you'd expect to face hundreds of damage per round at higher levels, and (B) since there's no DR equivalent that subtracts a flat amount of damage and can reduce it to 0, the barbarian still dies to a death of a thousand cuts from a bunch of mooks.


and fight through death itself.

...at 11th level, around when a Frenzied Berserker can do the same.


Monks. I shouldn't even have to say anything else.

Drastically improved over the 3e monk? Yes. More impressive than a fighter with a grab-bag of spells stapled onto it? Not particularly.


Cunning Action is one of the coolest and most powerful class features in any edition of D&D. Rogues get it at 2nd level.

It lets you Dash, Hide, or Disengage for free once per round. For Dash, there are many, many abilities in 3e that boost your speed or give you an extra move action, so a character who can move 30 feet, attack, and move back 30 feet repeatedly is nothing particularly special. That it comes at 2nd level is notable, but then 5e made everyone a lot more mobile in general so it really has to come that early to stand out.

For Hide, the rogue gains literally nothing. In 5e Hide is a separate action, but in 3e making a Hide check is part of a move action, so a 5e rogue's standard/move/bonus Hide turn is identical to a 3e rogue's standard/move-and-hide turn.

For Disengage, the rogue gets to take an action to avoid AoOs for a turn...otherwise known as "making a Tumble check" in 3e. Yes, it's nice to not need to make the check in 5e or to need to spend points on Tumble ranks, but it's not a new capabilty; Tumble checks very quickly become nigh-automatic successes for any character who cares about tumbling around the battlfield.


Evasion needs no explanation for why it's thoroughly fantasy.

Indeed it doesn't, but it might require an explanation as to why the 5e monk and rogue get it 5 levels later than their 3e incarnations.

[Ziegander]

And these amazing abilities would be...? I just went through the PHB looking at noncaster class features, and I didn't see anything in the first 5 or 6 levels that would have been particularly impressive in 3e, much less abilities at 1st or 2nd level that wouldn't come online until 17th+ in 3e. Things get slightly better at higher levels, but I still don't see anything to write home about by 3e standards. 5e martial types are definitely less screwed-over in the skills and utility department, but I think you're drastically overstating their power levels otherwise.

Really? :smallannoyed:

Half damage from weapon attacks while raging (1st level 5e Barbarian), that doesn't impress you? Considering that Barbarians never got a class feature so powerful in 3rd edition, I'd say it definitely qualifies as a "capstone," 20th level class feature in 3e. Action Surge is the Time Stands Still maneuver from Tome of Battle only it's way better. A 17th level ability, better, and the 5e Fighter gets it at 2nd level.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Nerfed compared to what? Compared to 4e? The 5e Fighter is literally stronger than it has ever been in any edition. Shrugging off lots of damage as a swift bonus action two or three times a day isn't fantasy enough for you? You're right, real people can fight past getting hit in the chest with a greataxe. Acting and moving twice as fast as any other humanoid or creature possibly can two or three times per day isn't fantasy enough for you (or four or six, depending on level)? Oh, but he can't do anything a normal person couldn't do with his impossibly fantastical speed, so it's still mundane stuck in Narnia. I guess you're right, Fighters are just not cut out for this fantasy thing.



Barbarians can block bullets with their chests, ignore half the damage from any attack while they rage, and fight through death itself. Monks. I shouldn't even have to say anything else. Cunning Action is one of the coolest and most powerful class features in any edition of D&D. Rogues get it at 2nd level. Evasion needs no explanation for why it's thoroughly fantasy.



You think it sucks. There's plenty of people who disagree. I agree that it could have been much more, and I wish they'd had the guts to go further with it, but I definitely don't think it sucks. I definitely there is a lot of awesome in those maneuvers.

You do realize that second wind is the worst healing in the game right? Like, 5e second wind doesn't even keep up with 4e second wind and the 4e fighter has other ways to heal themselves.

So yeah, its my opinion the fighter suck but at least look into the 5e and 4e fighter before throwing crap my way.

The rest of what is in your first paragraph can be done by anyone in the setting, it is a mundane effect of the HP / Attack roll system. Not of a class.

Second Paragraph: and it is all "Meh" compared to what casters get. Rogue is the closest to having awesome abilities but they are still so limited by real world ideologies that its sad.

3rd paragraph: Many people also agree with me, perhaps not on this forum (it is a very pro-mundane non-caster site) but many people agree with me. Just because I have an opinion doesn't mean I can't voice that opinion and base my work upon that opinion. I don't like the color blue, so guess what? I won't use the color blue when I paint my house! Imagine that.

If you don't like my opinion on the battle master that is fine, I really don't care, but stop trying to explain that it is my opinion and imply that my opinion is wrong just because people may disagree with it, that doesn't make me wrong. If my opinion is garbage to you then don't deal with me. Simple as that.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Really? :smallannoyed:

Half damage from weapon attacks while raging (1st level 5e Barbarian), that doesn't impress you? Considering that Barbarians never got a class feature so powerful in 3rd edition, I'd say it definitely qualifies as a "capstone," 20th level class feature in 3e. Action Surge is the Time Stands Still maneuver from Tome of Battle only it's way better. A 17th level ability, better, and the 5e Fighter gets it at 2nd level.

You posted while I was writing up my post again, so take a look at the edit in my last post for a response to your last one. I should have previewed my post, sorry.

To address these two in particular:

1) "Half damage" isn't worth the same in both editions. In 3e, taking only half damage from attacks at 15th level or so can save you from 120 damage per round from a full-attacking dragon, charging demon, or the like. In 5e, the only creature in the MM that breaks 100 damage (and thus 50 damage mitigated) is the Tarrasque, while half damage from an ancient dragon or pit fiend means taking 25-35 less damage. That level of damage mitigation isn't all that impressive: picking up DR 5 or 10 is easy, energy resistance of 10 or 15 from items or resistance of 20 or 30 through party buffs is cheap, Stone Power gives you 10 temp HP per round, and so forth. A mid-level crusader with Stone Bones, Stone Power, and Martial Spirit would barely notice 25 damage per round, and a high-level one with Adamantine Bones instead scoffs at 35 damage per round.

2) "Double actions" isn't worth the same in both editions, either. When you get Action Surge, what it actually does is let you take 2 attacks per turn, once per rest. Steel Wind, Flashing Sun, Cleave, TWF, et al. say hi, and they do so multiple times per combat. At 11th level, it gives you 4 attacks per turn in conjunction with Extra Attack; a baseline 3e fighter gets 3 attacks then, not at full BAB but likely at a comparable attack bonus due to the higher scaling in 3e and the ease of boosting attack bonus, and one with Rapid Shot, TWF, a speed weapon, a friendly caster with haste, or one of the many other means of getting extra attacks can take as many or more attacks--and note that he's doing more damage per attack, both relatively and absolutely, compared to the 5e version.

At 20th (!) level the 5e fighter finally gets a 3rd attack, for 6 attacks twice per rest. The 3e fighter is either doing as much damage with one attack that the 5e fighter is doing with three or four (if he's a charger, sniper, or other one-hit stylist) or is making 7-8 attacks every round (if he's a TWFer, volley archer, or other multi-hitter), and if we broaden it to martial classes in general a warblade or ranger is putting a mere 8 attacks per round to shame. Heck, Martial Study (Raging Mongoose) is almost exactly the same mechanic as Action Surge + Extra Attacks, except it gives one more attack and comes 5 levels earlier.


So yes, if you were to just slap "half damage" or "double actions" on a 3e character it would be a very good ability, but when you consider what the actual effect of those abilities is (high DR or energy resistance, 3 extra attacks a few times per day) and their impact when you actually get them (very low DR or energy resistance that can't totally negate attacks, a weaker TWF or Cleave), they aren't impressive at all.

[Ziegander]

EDIT: You posted while I was writing the above. Let's take a look: (And then you quoted a bunch of stuff I said out of context in a reply, not to you, but you SpawnOfMorbo). [...]

To be clear, this:


Barbarians can block bullets with their chests, ignore half the damage from any attack while they rage, and fight through death itself. Monks. I shouldn't even have to say anything else. Cunning Action is one of the coolest and most powerful class features in any edition of D&D. Rogues get it at 2nd level. Evasion needs no explanation for why it's thoroughly fantasy.

Was a list of things non-casters can do in 5e that are definitely fantasy, and not mundane, which was in retort to SpawnOfMorbo's insistence that non-casters don't get to be fantasy in D&D 5e.

This:


Really? :smallannoyed:

Half damage from weapon attacks while raging (1st level 5e Barbarian), that doesn't impress you? Considering that Barbarians never got a class feature so powerful in 3rd edition, I'd say it definitely qualifies as a "capstone," 20th level class feature in 3e. Action Surge is the Time Stands Still maneuver from Tome of Battle only it's way better. A 17th level ability, better, and the 5e Fighter gets it at 2nd level.

Was my reply to you, in which I clarified what abilities I was talking about when I mentioned that 5e non-casters get really powerful abilities that would have been 17th - 20th level abilities in 3rd edition, and that they get them at 1st or 2nd level. Slow down, there Pair O'Dice, false start.


You do realize that second wind is the worst healing in the game right? Like, 5e second wind doesn't even keep up with 4e second wind and the 4e fighter has other ways to heal themselves.

So yeah, its my opinion the fighter suck but at least look into the 5e and 4e fighter before throwing crap my way.

Yay! Make assumptions of my ignorance while showing your own lack of game design comprehension at the same time! It's a lose/lose! I've played 4e at low and high levels. Guess what? The entire scope of the game mechanics in general and expected character mathematics in specific between 4e and 5e are drastically different. It's entirely meaningless to look at the 4e Fighter, see that at 1st level it has like 30 hit points and can second wind 12 or so times per day for 7 hit points each time, and thus declare it "better" than the 5e Fighter. Meaningless. By that same token, not only is your assessment that 5e Second Wind is "the worst healing in the game" demonstrably incorrect, but it is also meaningless to see that it only heals 1d10 + Con mod + level and declare that inferior to 4e's 1/4 total hit points healing surges. You can't do that because the rules of the game, and the expected values and outputs radically different. If you don't understand that, then maybe you shouldn't be designing content for any edition of D&D.


If you don't like my opinion on the battle master that is fine, I really don't care, but stop trying to explain that it is my opinion and imply that my opinion is wrong just because people may disagree with it, that doesn't make me wrong. If my opinion is garbage to you then don't deal with me. Simple as that.

I never said your opinion was wrong, nor did I try to imply any such thing. But you're parading your opinion around as if it were fact, and you're trying to support your claim with a poorly scrabbled demonstration which I am explicitly calling out as being less than compelling evidence for your argument. I'm not implying that your Double Standard Wizard is weak evidence for your platform, I'm flat out saying, if you want to convince people that the 5e Fighter sucks, you'll need to do a lot better than this.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

To be clear, this:



Was a list of things non-casters can do in 5e that are definitely fantasy, and not mundane, which was in retort to SpawnOfMorbo's insistence that non-casters don't get to be fantasy in D&D 5e.

This:



Was my reply to you, in which I clarified what abilities I was talking about when I mentioned that 5e non-casters get really powerful abilities that would have been 17th - 20th level abilities in 3rd edition, and that they get them at 1st or 2nd level. Slow down, there Pair O'Dice, false start.



Yay! Make assumptions of my ignorance while showing your own lack of game design comprehension at the same time! It's a lose/lose! I've played 4e at low and high levels. Guess what? The entire scope of the game mechanics in general and expected character mathematics in specific between 4e and 5e are drastically different. It's entirely meaningless to look at the 4e Fighter, see that at 1st level it has like 30 hit points and can second wind 12 or so times per day for 7 hit points each time, and thus declare it "better" than the 5e Fighter. Meaningless. By that same token, not only is your assessment that 5e Second Wind is "the worst healing in the game" demonstrably incorrect, but it is also meaningless to see that it only heals 1d10 + Con mod + level and declare that inferior to 4e's 1/4 total hit points healing surges. You can't do that because the rules of the game, and the expected values and outputs radically different. If you don't understand that, then maybe you shouldn't be designing content for any edition of D&D.



I never said your opinion was wrong, nor did I try to imply any such thing. But you're parading your opinion around as if it were fact, and you're trying to support your claim with a poorly scrabbled demonstration which I am explicitly calling out as being less than compelling evidence for your argument. I'm not implying that your Double Standard Wizard is weak evidence for your platform, I'm flat out saying, if you want to convince people that the 5e Fighter sucks, you'll need to do a lot better than this.

Pro tip: When someone is designing something with a base opinion, for the purpose of that project that opinion is as good as fact.

For my work and my use of D&D the Battlemaster is a piece of garbage that isn't worth spitting on.

The wizard already has more interesting abilities because cantrips are more interesting than the options that a fighter obtains.

I don't come into your homebrew saying you base opinion is wrong and continue to clutter up the pages with arguments that don't pertain to the actual work that was done.

Think about that for a second, if people came into your hkmebrew thread and just preached over and over how your opinion is an opinion and then tried to explain why your opinion is wrong (which IS what you are doing). Yeah rather rude and annoying.

Want to disagree? That's fine but you don't have to crusade about it.

[Ziegander]

Pro tip: When someone is designing something with a base opinion, for the purpose of that project that opinion is as good as fact.

Here was the base opinion you started the thread off with:


Here is what the wizard would look like if we use the same standards for fantasy for it as the developers for 5e did for the fighter

The trouble is, you never even followed through with the promise of designing a Wizard version of the 5e Fighter. Your "FighterWizard" is worse and weaker than the 5e Fighter in many ways, so your entire exercise was flawed in the first place. You're problem with me isn't so much that I disagree with your base assumption, I do to varying degrees, but that I have the annoying audacity to call out that this project failed. I'm not sure what you were expecting to get out of this exercise, but you don't win accolades for doing a poor job at trying to prove a point.


For my work and my use of D&D the Battlemaster is a piece of garbage that isn't worth spitting on.

Perhaps if you were more upfront about these opinions, and less hostile, radical and extreme, people would be less likely to take an opposing stance.


The wizard already has more interesting abilities because cantrips are more interesting than the options that a fighter obtains.

Is this an opinion? Because, again, you're stating it as if it were a fact. If you don't want people to argue with you, that's fine, you should say that up front in your original posts, "Hey, guys, I don't take criticism well, and everything I post in here is my opinion that I can't or am not willing to support with facts. Don't bother arguing with me, because I will shout at you and get angry." Hey, I definitely would stay the devil out any threads that started like that.


Want to disagree? That's fine but you don't have to crusade about it.

Well, actually, the feeling I'm getting from you is that, no, it's not fine for you if I disagree with you. It doesn't seem fine at all. If you don't want your work to be criticized, then don't post it to a public forum that's built for that express purpose. If you want to prove the 5e Fighter is a piece of garbage that isn't worth spitting on, then use some statistical analysis or something else concrete. If you just want to soapbox and have your opinions validated, well, I don't think that's going to work here.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

To be clear, this:
[...]
Was a list of things non-casters can do in 5e that are definitely fantasy, and not mundane, which was in retort to SpawnOfMorbo's insistence that non-casters don't get to be fantasy in D&D 5e.

This:
[...]
Was my reply to you, in which I clarified what abilities I was talking about when I mentioned that 5e non-casters get really powerful abilities that would have been 17th - 20th level abilities in 3rd edition, and that they get them at 1st or 2nd level. Slow down, there Pair O'Dice, false start.

I'm sorry for mistaking your intentions, but the "Barbarians are tough, monks are awesome, rogues have action economy" bit I quoted was a follow-up to this bit:


The 5e Fighter is literally stronger than it has ever been in any edition. Shrugging off lots of damage as a swift bonus action two or three times a day isn't fantasy enough for you? You're right, real people can fight past getting hit in the chest with a greataxe. Acting and moving twice as fast as any other humanoid or creature possibly can two or three times per day isn't fantasy enough for you (or four or six, depending on level)? Oh, but he can't do anything a normal person couldn't do with his impossibly fantastical speed, so it's still mundane stuck in Narnia. I guess you're right, Fighters are just not cut out for this fantasy thing.

...in which you used the same "barbarians are tough, rogues have action economy" examples as justification for the statement that the 5e fighter is the strongest it's been in any edition, so I figured that's the kind of "17th level 3e abilites at 5e 1st level" features you were talking about.

And while I still very much disagree about the 5e fighter being as poweful as the 3e or 4e fighter, I'm with you on the point that the FighterWizard says nothing useful about the 5e fighter or 5e wizard, so if you want to focus on duking it out with Morbo I can bow out of this discussion and agree to disagree on that point.

[Ziegander]

And while I still very much disagree about the 5e fighter being as poweful as the 3e or 4e fighter, I'm with you on the point that the FighterWizard says nothing useful about the 5e fighter or 5e wizard, so if you want to focus on duking it out with Morbo I can bow out of this discussion and agree to disagree on that point.

Well, certainly it's more properly an entirely different argument for a different thread, and it's not an argument I feel so passionate about that it should deserve it's own thread, honestly. To qualify that particular statement, though, you were right to say, "So yes, if you were to just slap "half damage" or "double actions" on a 3e character it would be a very good ability, but when you consider what the actual effect of those abilities is (high DR or energy resistance, 3 extra attacks a few times per day) and their impact when you actually get them," because I was meaning that the abilities the 5e Fighter gets are more powerful than ever, compared strictly through the lens of its abilities and how they would have played in previous editions. I disagree that the abilities are "not impressive at all," when you view them in light of 5e's overall rule set; however, but, again, not so strongly as to need to start a new thread about it.

I'm not specifically trying to duke it out with SpawnOfMorbo, he's just gotten increasingly more hostile and dismissive with me, and I feel more just like I'm defending myself, though I suppose I might have come across a bit too combative in my defense as well.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I'm sorry for mistaking your intentions, but the "Barbarians are tough, monks are awesome, rogues have action economy" bit I quoted was a follow-up to this bit:



...in which you used the same "barbarians are tough, rogues have action economy" examples as justification for the statement that the 5e fighter is the strongest it's been in any edition, so I figured that's the kind of "17th level 3e abilites at 5e 1st level" features you were talking about.

And while I still very much disagree about the 5e fighter being as poweful as the 3e or 4e fighter, I'm with you on the point that the FighterWizard says nothing useful about the 5e fighter or 5e wizard, so if you want to focus on duking it out with Morbo I can bow out of this discussion and agree to disagree on that point.

Oh don't worry, I'm done entertaining him on this subject.

[Gnomes2169]

Gonna have to agree that the double standards wizard really, really does not stack up to an actual 5e fighter just yet. Maybe a champion fighter, maybe? But compared to a battlemaster, well, DSW would get its rear end thrashed.

Also, I read in here that someone thinks the 5e fighter only gets three attacks... Hah. No. They get three extra attacks on top of yhe base one every character can get. They get the first extra attack at level 5, the second at level 11 and the third at level 20, giving the fighter the following array for attacks/ round:
Level; # attacks
-1-4; 1 (2 when action surging or dual wielding, 3 if dual wielding and action surging)
-5-10; 2 (3 when dual wielding, 4 when action surging, 5 when dual wielding and action surging)
-11-19; 3 (4 when dual wielding, 6 when action surging, 7 when dual wielding or action surging)
-20; 4 (5 when dual wielding, 8 when action surging, 9 when dual wielding and action surging)

Haste (which is a thing) adds to the numbers of those attacks (1 more!), and can stack with a speed weapon unlike in 3.5 (check the speed enchantment, it specifically does not stack with haste effects). The 5e speed eats your bonus action, so no dual wielding on that round... But another greatsword swing is worth it anyway. Just like in 3.5.

Add in that you can move your entire move speed without sacrificing any attacks in 5e, and for just attack purposes, action surge is better that Time Stands Still (which was a full round, so you could not move while doing it, and only 5' before or after it.) However, Action Surge has an even bigger bonus than that... So do you want to cast two spells in one round? For free? On top of your quickened spell (a scaling 5e cantrip, though this limits you to a sorc for the metamagic)? Of course you do, and guess what two level dip that you can multiclass into if you have a typical dex score gives you that exact capability.

Fighter 2 is borderline game breaking as far as the latest game builds for casters go, and on fighters with a little bit of rogue or barbarian on them (more likely rogue, because that auto-crit from the assassin subclass at level 3 is ridiculous), makes hitting the 300+ damage/ round builds in 3.5 rather attainable with far fewer splat/ multiclass/ feat chain nonsense buts going on. Especially with Battle Master (which I've found to be hillariously fun to use. My players groan if any of them have to fight one, and they haven't won once. This is their pubishment for always forcing me to DM instead of letting me play for once. :smalltongue:)

But yeah, I really don't feel like this captures the 5e fighter in any way, and that this wizard is just pathetic in comparison. The archmage takes a boring mechanic and does nothing but boring it some more, and its analogies are rather... Weak. The battlemaster is just better because of the higher scaling die that always adds a rider effect that is beneficial to the fighter or his allies in some way. If you wanted to make this into an actual class, I would suggest editing the archmage accordingly.

However, if this is just a thread made to "prove a point," then I suggest you stop making this thread, as it has been made. You do not like the fighter in 5e. Okay. Fair enough, no one will force you to do so. However, making a thread to passively-agressively attack a concept in the homebrew section is not the way to go about it, and feels disingenuous to the people coming into the subforum to look at and critique classes/ subclasses/ races/ feats/ whatever that people want legitimate feedback on, or that they are planning to use and want a more balanced, more loophole free final version of. I don't know if there is a place for a thread like this, but it definitely is not the homebrew subforum.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Gonna have to agree that the double standards wizard really, really does not stack up to an actual 5e fighter just yet. Maybe a champion fighter, maybe? But compared to a battlemaster, well, DSW would get its rear end thrashed.

Also, I read in here that someone thinks the 5e fighter only gets three attacks... Hah. No. They get three extra attacks on top of yhe base one every character can get. They get the first extra attack at level 5, the second at level 11 and the third at level 20, giving the fighter the following array for attacks/ round:
Level; # attacks
-1-4; 1 (2 when action surging or dual wielding, 3 if dual wielding and action surging)
-5-10; 2 (3 when dual wielding, 4 when action surging, 5 when dual wielding and action surging)
-11-19; 3 (4 when dual wielding, 6 when action surging, 7 when dual wielding or action surging)
-20; 4 (5 when dual wielding, 8 when action surging, 9 when dual wielding and action surging)

Haste (which is a thing) adds to the numbers of those attacks (1 more!), and can stack with a speed weapon unlike in 3.5 (check the speed enchantment, it specifically does not stack with haste effects). The 5e speed eats your bonus action, so no dual wielding on that round... But another greatsword swing is worth it anyway. Just like in 3.5.

Add in that you can move your entire move speed without sacrificing any attacks in 5e, and for just attack purposes, action surge is better that Time Stands Still (which was a full round, so you could not move while doing it, and only 5' before or after it.) However, Action Surge has an even bigger bonus than that... So do you want to cast two spells in one round? For free? On top of your quickened spell (a scaling 5e cantrip, though this limits you to a sorc for the metamagic)? Of course you do, and guess what two level dip that you can multiclass into if you have a typical dex score gives you that exact capability.

Fighter 2 is borderline game breaking as far as the latest game builds for casters go, and on fighters with a little bit of rogue or barbarian on them (more likely rogue, because that auto-crit from the assassin subclass at level 3 is ridiculous), makes hitting the 300+ damage/ round builds in 3.5 rather attainable with far fewer splat/ multiclass/ feat chain nonsense buts going on. Especially with Battle Master (which I've found to be hillariously fun to use. My players groan if any of them have to fight one, and they haven't won once. This is their pubishment for always forcing me to DM instead of letting me play for once. :smalltongue:)

But yeah, I really don't feel like this captures the 5e fighter in any way, and that this wizard is just pathetic in comparison. The archmage takes a boring mechanic and does nothing but boring it some more, and its analogies are rather... Weak. The battlemaster is just better because of the higher scaling die that always adds a rider effect that is beneficial to the fighter or his allies in some way. If you wanted to make this into an actual class, I would suggest editing the archmage accordingly.

However, if this is just a thread made to "prove a point," then I suggest you stop making this thread, as it has been made. You do not like the fighter in 5e. Okay. Fair enough, no one will force you to do so. However, making a thread to passively-agressively attack a concept in the homebrew section is not the way to go about it, and feels disingenuous to the people coming into the subforum to look at and critique classes/ subclasses/ races/ feats/ whatever that people want legitimate feedback on, or that they are planning to use and want a more balanced, more loophole free final version of. I don't know if there is a place for a thread like this, but it definitely is not the homebrew subforum.

Actually spells of first level and above won't/ don't exist. This isn't just double standard wizard, but double standard magic.

This isn't just about the class itself but to show what magic would be allowed to do if it got made with the same ideology as noncasters. That is, it's fantasy, but it is mundane fantasy.

The wizard is totally casting spells (Firebolt and such) but what they can actually do with spells is pretty tame.

This isn't an attempt to make a wizard that equal the fighter, or to be balanced with the fighter. This shows what happened when you take the wizard (and by extension magic) and put them under similar constraints as noncasters.

So a lot of things actually don't exist. Many feats will need to written again to work with this, and people need to get the idea of Haste out of their head because no caster will be able to cast haste. The only spells that can be cast by a Wizard are attack/damage cantrips and the Battle Master Wizard gains Archmage Arcana to modify the spells. So the Battlemaster fighter won't get help from a caster casting Haste.

The extra attacks are used by this wizard too, either through shocking grasp or ranged magic. They get the same amount and same number of bonus damage spell slots (gave them two extra since I thought they had that before but didn't).

Take a look at the editing I did yesterday afternoon a lot has changed with the archmage.

[Giant2005]

Well they did increase cantrip base damage but that doesn't matter.

Take a gander at the changes.

I figured out what I was doing wrong, I got into the habit of thinking of letting the archmage use spells like a wizard instead of using spells like a battle master.

Looks good!
I think I'd actually play this class (As long as it also had access to magic weaponry which enhanced it to the same extent as magic weaponry enhances Fighters). I think it is actually balanced okay - sure there are some downsides compared to the standard Fighter but there are benefits too such as ranged damage without ammunition, the ease of changing damage types and some of the Cantrips have really great secondary effects.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Looks good!
I think I'd actually play this class (As long as it also had access to magic weaponry which enhanced it to the same extent as magic weaponry enhances Fighters). I think it is actually balanced okay - sure there are some downsides compared to the standard Fighter but there are benefits too such as ranged damage without ammunition, the ease of changing damage types and some of the Cantrips have really great secondary effects.

Thanks!

I wasn't actually looking to balance it, that is just a by product of using the same ideology (imagine that wotc!).

Any magic weapon could totally be replicated as a Magic Foci or something. One of my first ideas was to have each cantrip be a specific foci but went away from that since it might be too much.

Yeah the differences are minor but I think this wizard's downsides are less than the fighter. Some cantrips already have better riders than maneuvers/archmage arcana...

[Giant2005]

Thanks!

I wasn't actually looking to balance it, that is just a by product of using the same ideology (imagine that wotc!).

Any magic weapon could totally be replicated as a Magic Foci or something. One of my first ideas was to have each cantrip be a specific foci but went away from that since it might be too much.

Yeah the differences are minor but I think this wizard's downsides are less than the fighter. Some cantrips already have better riders than maneuvers/archmage arcana...

After thinking about it some more, it probably isn't as balanced as I first thought - being able to get the secondary effects of four cantrips in a turn is probably too powerful. Or even just Vicious Mockery (Once you give the Bard the same treatment so you can multi for that Cantrip) plus two Firebolts would be very effective (At level 12 would be 1D4+2D10+15 for an average of 28.5 plus imposing disadvantage). You should probably alter it so the extra attack features have to be used with the same Cantrip that you used for the first attack.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

After thinking about it some more, it probably isn't as balanced as I first thought - being able to get the secondary effects of four cantrips in a turn is probably too powerful. Or even just Vicious Mockery (Once you give the Bard the same treatment so you can multi for that Cantrip) plus two Firebolts would be very effective (At level 12 would be 1D4+2D10+15 for an average of 28.5 plus imposing disadvantage). You should probably alter it so the extra attack features have to be used with the same Cantrip that you used for the first attack.

Yeah I forgot to add the same line from Duel Caster to extra attack.

I'll allow for multiple cantrips so you can switch up your ranges or however you want to do it. But I'll add in the line from Duel Caster into Extra Attack.

Even without spell slots the wizard already is close to the battle master since cantrips have at will rider effects and the fighter doesn't.

[Yakk]

So, I'm playing around with the inverse operation on the 5e fighter.

The basic design is "take the wizard spells/day table. Halve hero level. Give the hero talents of the levels described". So a level 1 hero has 2 level 1 talents. A level 20 hero has talents up to level 5.

A sketch of talent ideas:


Heroic Talents

Leap - Level 1
As a bonus action you can jump 5' up and 10' across, or increase the distance of a jump by that amount. Doing so is strenuous, like engaging in combat or sprinting. For each higher level you master this ability, double the distance jumped (up to 80' up and 160' across at level 5). (5'/10', 10'/20', 20'/40', 40'/80', 80'/160')

Run - Level 1
Your speed increases by 10' per round. For each higher level you master this ability at, the speed increase doubles, up to a maximum of 160' at level 5. (10', 20', 40', 80', 160'). You can Dash as a bonus action.

Endure - Level 1
You have advantage on rolls to endure harsh persistant environments (wall of fire, but not fireball), pain, injested poisons, and against tiredness and exhastion. You can use your bonus action to regin hit points equal to 1d10 plus your character level, plus (optionally) an expended HD, once between short or long rests, and can reroll a failed saving throw once between long rests. If you master this at a higher level, second wind heals 1d10 per talent level and up to 1 HD per talent level, plus your character level, and you can reroll a failed saving throw talent level times between long rests.

Fighting Style - Level 1
You know one Fighting Style. If you master this at a higher level, you know one additional style per level.

Alertness - Level 1
You gain advantage on one of: Initiative checks, checks/saves against Illusion magic, checks/saves against Hiding, checks/saves against Deception or Bluffs. If you master this at a higher level, you gain advantage in one more choice of circumstance per level. If you master this at level 5, you also gain a +5 bonus to such checks.

Attunement - Level 1
You can attune an additional magic item. If you master this at a higher level, you can attune 1 additional item per talent level.

Focus - Level 1
You can enter a state of perfect focus as an action. When in the state of focus, you can expend the focus to reroll any d20 roll that failed, but this costs you your focus.

If you master this at level 2, you can force attack rolls or similar rolls against you to reroll instead.

If you master this at level 3, you can reroll all failed rolls you make before the start of your next turn (but must keep the second result), and force any attack rolls that hit you (and similar) to reroll, when you expend your focus. (If you expend your focus not on your turn, the effects instead last until the end of your next turn)

If you master this at level 4, your focus remains unexpended if the reroll succeeds (or, in the case of an attack on you (or similar), if the reroll misses).

If you master this at level 5, you can enter the state of perfect focus as a bonus action.

Action Surge - Level 2
Once between long rests you can take an extra action on one of your turns. If you master this at level 3, you can also take an additional bonus action. If you master this at level 4, you can use this twice between long rests. If you master this at level 5, you can use this once between short rests, plus one additional between long rests. You can only use this ability once per turn regardless.

Savant - Level 2
In order to take this ability, you must already have the ability to cast at least 1 spell. Pick a level 1 spell. You can cast that spell once between long rests, using a mental ability score of your choice as your casting stat, and it is cast as if it was a level 2 spell. If you master this as a higher level talent, you can pick a spell from level 1 up to 1 less than level of the talent, and it is cast as a spell of the level of the talent. You can pick this ability more than once, but must always use the same mental ability score.

Combat Reflexes - Level 3
You gain an extra reaction per round, but only one per opponent's turn. At mastery level 4, you also gain advantage on all reaction attack rolls. At level 5, you now have a reaction per opponent's or allies turn.

Now, a few of these are a bit "feat taxy", and most are level 1 talents (that scale, at least).

With 4+3+3+3+3 Talents, I'd need 16 talents to give the character nearly no choice. I have 8, of varying quality.

I think most of these line up with the kind of things heroic "warrior types" do in myth, legend and fiction.

My critiques of the above:

Fighting Style and Alertness are a bit meh, they scale sub-linearly mostly (level 2 is less than twice as good as level 1). Endure and Attunement doesn't scale super-linearly enough for my tastes (level 4 is almost as good as level 5).

Leap and Run are both awesome "non-combat" talents.

Focus might be too strong, but I love the flavour.

Action Surge is almost a tax. As a level 2 talent, you can get it first at level 3, which is later than the baseline Fighter sadly.

Combat Reflexes could get munchkiny. But I like how it breaks the games rules.

Savant is a bit of a cop out. But it does let a magical race "learn new magic" as they gain levels, which is neat. Or a fighter can MC wizard for 1 level, then burn Talents on more Savant magic if they chose.

Talent's I'm thinking about include "Leadership", "Rally", "Tactical Instinct", "Crafting", "Nobility", "Brute", "Grace", "Woodsman", "Freedom", "Cheating", "Contacts"...

[SpawnOfMorbo]

So, I'm playing around with the inverse operation on the 5e fighter.

The basic design is "take the wizard spells/day table. Halve hero level. Give the hero talents of the levels described". So a level 1 hero has 2 level 1 talents. A level 20 hero has talents up to level 5.

A sketch of talent ideas:

Now, a few of these are a bit "feat taxy", and most are level 1 talents (that scale, at least).

With 4+3+3+3+3 Talents, I'd need 16 talents to give the character nearly no choice. I have 8, of varying quality.

I think most of these line up with the kind of things heroic "warrior types" do in myth, legend and fiction.

My critiques of the above:

Fighting Style and Alertness are a bit meh, they scale sub-linearly mostly (level 2 is less than twice as good as level 1). Endure and Attunement doesn't scale super-linearly enough for my tastes (level 4 is almost as good as level 5).

Leap and Run are both awesome "non-combat" talents.

Focus might be too strong, but I love the flavour.

Action Surge is almost a tax. As a level 2 talent, you can get it first at level 3, which is later than the baseline Fighter sadly.

Combat Reflexes could get munchkiny. But I like how it breaks the games rules.

Savant is a bit of a cop out. But it does let a magical race "learn new magic" as they gain levels, which is neat. Or a fighter can MC wizard for 1 level, then burn Talents on more Savant magic if they chose.

Talent's I'm thinking about include "Leadership", "Rally", "Tactical Instinct", "Crafting", "Nobility", "Brute", "Grace", "Woodsman", "Freedom", "Cheating", "Contacts"...

I skimmed it over and I like a lot of what you are doing, but I need to get home from work so I'll reply later.

My inverse Fighter will be based off the Warlock, complete with recreated pacts (cantrips and spells will become maneuvers), invocations (abilities), recreated patrons (they won't be deity like entities), and recreated mystic Incarnum (extreme exertion a la my high level ToB maneuvers)

[Amnoriath]

My inverse Fighter will be based off the Warlock, complete with recreated pacts (cantrips and spells will become maneuvers), invocations (abilities), recreated patrons (they won't be deity like entities), and recreated mystic Incarnum (extreme exertion a la my high level ToB maneuvers)
This just proves the inherent disingenuous nature of this thread. In making this wizard and Archmage ever more exactly like the Fighter that still makes sense as a caster you have conceded inferiority to the Fighter and respective subclass. Weapons deal more base damage as well as being ultimately harder to ignore and can even add to attack as well as damage. Feats inherently favor weapons more. Attacks can be traded in for physical checks. Then finally a Fighter has an insurmountable amount of health as well as self-healing through out the day in which this can't keep up. Your point fails not only in statistics but in not considering the game itself. So if you are going to make said remarks make threads in which you are actually would consider using what you make.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

This just proves the inherent disingenuous nature of this thread. In making this wizard and Archmage ever more exactly like the Fighter that still makes sense as a caster you have conceded inferiority to the Fighter and respective subclass. Weapons deal more base damage as well as being ultimately harder to ignore and can even add to attack as well as damage. Feats inherently favor weapons more. Attacks can be traded in for physical checks. Then finally a Fighter has an insurmountable amount of health as well as self-healing through out the day in which this can't keep up. Your point fails not only in statistics but in not considering the game itself. So if you are going to make said remarks make threads in which you are actually would consider using what you make.


Ok, just so you know, as one wind is the worst healing in the game.

I've also already started the Druid (Barbarian Base) and the Fighter (Warlock Base).

I'm not sure what your problem is but until you see what I have I don't think you should be passing judgment.

[Amnoriath]

Ok, just so you know, as one wind is the worst healing in the game.

I've also already started the Druid (Barbarian Base) and the Fighter (Warlock Base).

I'm not sure what your problem is but until you see what I have I don't think you should be passing judgment.
1. I am not talking about that, though keep in mind it adds another 20-30+ hit points to the gap. I am talking about the rest hit die or 5e healing surges. The comparable Dex. Fighter will be adding +5 to each one of those d10's the choose to use because he can afford the 20 constitution score.
2. Except you are continuing this charade if not purposely fishing for that is broken reaction on your new martial characters to throw it in people's faces. Even if that isn't the case somehow this was the pattern of your argument before so I every reason to say so.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

1. I am not talking about that, though keep in mind it adds another 20-30+ hit points to the gap. I am talking about the rest hit die or 5e healing surges. The comparable Dex. Fighter will be adding +5 to each one of those d10's the choose to use because he can afford the 20 constitution score.
2. Except you are continuing this charade if not purposely fishing for that is broken reaction on your new martial characters to throw it in people's faces. Even if that isn't the case somehow this was the pattern of your argument before so I every reason to say so.

What charade?

I'm turning the double standard around, this isn't a charade. This is what it looks like when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

The fighter (warlock base) won't even have second wind so... I'm not sure where you are getting your information but it wasn't from my stuff since I just posted a very very very rough draft.

The wizard can totally be Int, Con, Dex if they like, they have a ton of ASI to get there. Actually, the wizard gains more ASI than my Fighter will.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to freak out and attack me by calling my stuff a charade but I would appreciate it if you actually read my work and then commented on it. It might make things go by a bit easier.

Hint: Int mod goes to the wizards damage on cantrips :smallamused: you argued with Crusaderjoe and you wouldn't even read the original post even after it was quoted. And I changed it hours before you started going off about it.

[Amnoriath]

What charade?

I'm turning the double standard around, this isn't a charade. This is what it looks like when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

The fighter (warlock base) won't even have second wind so... I'm not sure where you are getting your information but it wasn't from my stuff since I just posted a very very very rough draft.

The wizard can totally be Int, Con, Dex if they like, they have a ton of ASI to get there. Actually, the wizard gains more ASI than my Fighter will.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to freak out and attack me by calling my stuff a charade but I would appreciate it if you actually read my work and then commented on it. It might make things go by a bit easier.

Hint: Int mod goes to the wizards damage on cantrips :smallamused: you argued with Crusaderjoe and you wouldn't even read the original post even after it was quoted. And I changed it hours before you started going off about it.
1. No it is because you would never use it yourself and it is a trap to get people to say that is broken to throw it in their faces.
2. Are they getting a base 16 in each one of them? Also what about those ever so great feats you can pick up?
3. I have, no wizard attack cantrip goes above a 1d8 at base and I explained everything else. You have made it more of a faulty copy. Again it is very disingenuous to say you do when I first commented you didn't and then say that it does.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

1. No it is because you would never use it yourself and it is a trap to get people to say that is broken to throw it in their faces.
2. Are they getting a base 16 in each one of them? Also what about those ever so great feats you can pick up?
3. I have, no wizard attack cantrip goes above a 1d8 at base and I explained everything else. You have made it more of a faulty copy. Again it is very disingenuous to say you do when I first commented you didn't and then say that it does.


1: read my stuff. Fighter is based on the warlock. Go read the warlock. Read my wizard. Do simple subtraction. Realize that after reading what I posted, the wizard gets more ASIs than the fighter will.

2: Feats are going to change, this has been the case for like... Two days now that I got things sorted out and on track.

3: Read the basic rules for the game. Firebolt deals 1d10. The DS wizard gets to add their Int mod to their attack damage to all spells. Also spells have riders so even if it only dealt 1d8 + Int modifier damage... Chill Touch is still a hellacious cantrip.

Oh, and just in case you missed it!

The Firebolt cantrip, in the core rules of the game we are talking about, that others have pointed out, deals 1d10 base damage. With my wizard that damage is 1d10+Int Modifier Damage.

Seriously dude, calm down and read before posting and stop taking the DS Wizard as some sort of personal insult.

[Amnoriath]

Seriously dude, calm down and read before posting and stop taking the DS Wizard as some sort of personal insult.

But this is why you are doing this. You are doing this because you said it yourself a fighter isn't even worth spitting on. So, what do you do? You turn the wizard into a fighter and you make a fighter into a warlock..etc. You also then are going to vastly change feats, attacks,..etc. Do you not see at this point you are purposely changing the rules of the game just to fit it into your narrative and spite the Designers. The insult is intentional but you are exercising pure sophistry to try to make it stick in which it won't be the 5e system any more.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

But this is why you are doing this. You are doing this because you said it yourself a fighter isn't even worth spitting on. So, what do you do? You turn the wizard into a fighter and you make a fighter into a warlock..etc. You also then are going to vastly change feats, attacks,..etc. Do you not see at this point you are purposely changing the rules of the game just to fit it into your narrative and spite the Designers. The insult is intentional but you are exercising pure sophistry to try to make it stick in which it won't be the 5e system any more.

You completely miss the point of the double standard wizard. It is to show people the missing potential in the fighter and other martials by using the same ideology to make the wizard as you use to make the fighter. This missing potential is with the current fighter, maybe if people see how sad the DS Wizard is compared to what the Wizard can do they will finally understand.

The DS Wizard is useful in a game, just as a Fighter is. However it is nowhere as awesome, interesting, or useful as the normal wizard due to the loss of 1st - 9th level spells. It would be great as a simple wizard if someone is in to that.

I prefer to have high fantasy options in a high fantasy world. Keep the low fantasy options, people like that too, I just think there is room in 5e for a low and high fantasy option for each base class. I know it is possible to do this, we already have high fantasy wizards running around with low fantasy fighters.

Essentially, it comes down to judging casters as commoner plus, whereas martials can ignore their commoner roots.

I'm not turning the wizard into a fighter, it is still a magic user who uses magic to do its job. However I used the ideology of the fighter to make the wizard. To represent this I used the base of the fighter and recreated it to work as a magic user and not a martial character. The lesser HD (meeting cleric and ranger types) is because cantrips are more interesting and useful than weapon attacks. This is a typical way of doing things in D&D, if you have other tools your HD can go down as in the Ranger and Rogue.

The fighter is getting the base warlock chassis. This will give the fighter specific options to do awesome things, be versitile, and have a patron (worldly patron) that gives them stuff because of a pact they made with that patron.

If you don't get it, that's fine, ask me to explain it. Don't just assume things, not read what I've made, dont read what others have already said, and then assume more things.

[Amnoriath]

You completely miss the point of the double standard wizard. It is to show people the missing potential in the fighter and other martials by using the same ideology to make the wizard as you use to make the fighter. This missing potential is with the current fighter, maybe if people see how sad the DS Wizard is compared to what the Wizard can do they will finally understand.

The DS Wizard is useful in a game, just as a Fighter is. However it is nowhere as awesome, interesting, or useful as the normal wizard due to the loss of 1st - 9th level spells. It would be great as a simple wizard if someone is in to that.

I prefer to have high fantasy options in a high fantasy world. Keep the low fantasy options, people like that too, I just think there is room in 5e for a low and high fantasy option for each base class. I know it is possible to do this, we already have high fantasy wizards running around with low fantasy fighters.

Essentially, it comes down to judging casters as commoner plus, whereas martials can ignore their commoner roots.

I'm not turning the wizard into a fighter, it is still a magic user who uses magic to do its job. However I used the ideology of the fighter to make the wizard. To represent this I used the base of the fighter and recreated it to work as a magic user and not a martial character. The lesser HD (meeting cleric and ranger types) is because cantrips are more interesting and useful than weapon attacks. This is a typical way of doing things in D&D, if you have other tools your HD can go down as in the Ranger and Rogue.

The fighter is getting the base warlock chassis. This will give the fighter specific options to do awesome things, be versitile, and have a patron (worldly patron) that gives them stuff because of a pact they made with that patron.

If you don't get it, that's fine, ask me to explain it. Don't just assume things, not read what I've made, dont read what others have already said, and then assume more things.
It doesn't matter if you want the positive outcome of reforming the fighter. You still aren't going to use the effective new system because you know you made the wizard as bad if not worse than the current fighter in your eyes. You ran into this problem because you knew you couldn't give everything a fighter had to this and still make sense as a caster. The same will be the Fighter and you will add other instead because you want to show potential. Then you are changing the attacks, feats, and system in general. So you are doing this not because you actually will use the entirety of what you have, but selectively add from your pile and detract from the PHB. With as many changes as you are making not only do you not have a proper dichotomy to make your point but you aren't even looking to use it all because this comes from a sense of balance.
The Designers know how to ensure everyone is on the same level. That was 4e and it did a far better job than your previous work both in terms of versatility and balance, but most RP people didn't like it. Why? Because it was an all encompassing playing system that left no room for different styles, levels of expertise, or improvisation. It was an online game with books. Everything was a resource manager with very detailed and specific powers precluding others which drug out battle, often ending in stalemates. I am not saying this because I believe this is what will happen to you. What I am saying is the Designers ultimately realized it isn't all about balance it is about is what we are making actually makes sense, is everyone contributing in relation to others(remember concentration), and most importantly is everyone having fun. They made 5e with not only less numbers but with less text and guidelines so that the RAI, spirit, and improvisation are much larger factors among all members. So they didn't make noncasters with a double standard for easy play they made them that way because not only does it make sense in the base idea in which fantastic stuff can be added or interpreted but people sometimes would rather be reliable and a few tricks rather than unreliable with vast amounts of tricks.

[CrusaderJoe]

snip

I think it went over your head, a lot of things really.

[Amnoriath]

I think it went over your head, a lot of things really.

You know if you are going to call someone stupid, go and actually say why.:smallannoyed: Just because I wasn't updated or didn't have a book on me doesn't make me retarded. My calling out on what is going on here denies that.

[Ziegander]

Premise #1: The 5e Fighter is the worst thing the game has ever seen.

Premise #2: I'll make a new Wizard following the design of the 5e Fighter to prove how poor it's design really is.

Premise #3: The 5e Warlock design is great and well-balanced, not too strong, not too weak.

Premise #4: I'll make a new Fighter following the design of the 5e Warlock to show how awesome Fighters can really be.

Premise #5: Then I'll claim that my new Wizard and my new Fighter are balanced against each other.

Premis--

Wait. Wait... WHAT?!

[CrusaderJoe]

You know if you are going to call someone stupid, go and actually say why.:smallannoyed: Just because I wasn't updated or didn't have a book on me doesn't make me retarded. My calling out on what is going on here denies that.

I never called you stupid.

I will call into question your ability (or willingness) to read but I never called you stupid.

Just because something goes over your head or you didn't understand something doesn't mean someone is calling you stupid. I'm sure everyone has that happen to them every so often. You aren't grasping the point of the DS Wizard. Which is fine, you don't see the double standard in the fantasy game.

Since you just can't go two seconds without freaking out or putting words in other people's mouths I'm blocking you. Have a nice time on here but I don't want to deal with this stuff anymore.

[CrusaderJoe]

Premise #1: The 5e Fighter is the worst thing the game has ever seen.

Premise #2: I'll make a new Wizard following the design of the 5e Fighter to prove how poor it's design really is.

Premise #3: The 5e Warlock design is great and well-balanced, not too strong, not too weak.

Premise #4: I'll make a new Fighter following the design of the 5e Warlock to show how awesome Fighters can really be.

Premise #5: Then I'll claim that my new Wizard and my new Fighter are balanced against each other.

Premis--

Wait. Wait... WHAT?!

The new wizard is balanced against the old fighter and the new fighter is balanced against the old warlock.

I don't see where it says the new classes will be balanced with each other.

[Ziegander]

I don't see where it says the new classes will be balanced with each other.

I might be misunderstanding him.

[Amechra]

Just popping in here to drop my 2cp. I don't have a horse in the fight, so I'll give my unbiased opinion:

You guys all need to take a chill pill. None of you are arguing in good faith. It's appalling.

The OP never claimed to be balancing this class against anything; their point was to explore their views on the "double standard" in fantasy vis-a-vis spellcasters and not-spellcasters, something that (I'm pretty sure) we all accept as a thing.

Judging from the OP, they did not attempt to balance this class against the Fighter; it's less of an attempt to homebrew a usable class, and more of a work of satire (kind of like how the Lightning Warrior was originally made to mock poorly-balanced homebrew classes).

Their later comments on "rewriting the Fighter to be like the Warlock" was in response to a distinct question that someone else brought up ("How would you do a Fighter by the standards of a spellcaster?" not "How would you do a Fighter by the standards of a Wizard?").

Conversely, Ziegander does bring up a valid point; by not being overly concerned with the balance of their satirical class, the OP has diluted their argument.



So I suggest everyone take a short breath, and then continue your argumentifying in good faith. Because we're all "friends" here.

(Being ignored in 3...)

[Amnoriath]

I might be misunderstanding him.

While the proof you gave me a chuckle. This is what he is trying to do.
Premise 1: Make the Wizard into a Fighter that still somewhat makes sense as a caster.
Premise 2: Make the feats benefit new "casters"
Premise 3: Make cantrips into new attacks..etc
Premise 4: Make Fighter into new Warlock that still somewhat makes sense as a marital build.
Premise 5: Change current spells into attacks..etc
Premise 6: The new Fighter will finally be given the potential it has always deserved while the Wizard shows just how small the old fighter was. As such people will see the double standard allowing me to bring in my non-caster fixes to contend with current casters.
Problem/s: Premises 1-5 fundamentally change the game in which it is no longer 5e or a proper dichotomy of the equivalents never allowing Premise 6 to occur.

[Logosloki]

Abjuration should read "While you are wearing armour you gain +1AC". This brings it in line with Defence. You have to allow for the fact that someone may multiclass into Double-Standard Wizard or that Double-Standard Wizard will pick up medium and/or heavy armour proficiencies.

Conjuration is very clear with what it is and does. That is great.

Evocation still merely needs to read "Shocking grasp gains +2 damage". There is only one damaging cantrip with the range of touch and there are no damaging cantrips with the range of self.

Necromancy should be for Chill Touch only I believe. This way you can bring back in line with what it is meant to be (the fighting style aping Great Weapon Fighter) without giving unnecessary power to other cantrip options, much like how Great Weapon Fighter is only applicable to weapons wielding with two hands.

Illusion is in a weird place.

Dual casting can be made much more clearer if you just adjust it to read "Shocking grasp gains the light weapon property see chapter 5 for a description of this property."

Suggestions for the missing arcana names:
Manoeuvring attack: Mage hand
Riposte: Auto-cast
Sweeping Attack: Weave Arc

You could add second wind back into the class to bring it parity with fighter. A name suggestion I give is Arcane Well: You have a limited well of magic that you can draw on to protect you from harm. On your turn you can use a bonus action to regain hitpoints equal to 1d8+your wizard level. Once you use this feature you must finish a short or long rest until you can use it again.

Now, Onto a major design shift. I believe that instead of Allowing the wizard to gain cantrips, you make arcane foci into a weapon that gives the wizard that cantrip. So, when you want to cast Chill Touch, you must wield a chill touch arcane focus. This allows you to finally remove all but the six damaging cantrips. So, the rebuild in question would be:

Wizard
Make weapon proficiencies "Simple weapons and Foci"

Make the Following Arcane Foci as weapons:
Acid Splash
Chill Touch
Fire Bolt
Poison Spray
Ray of Frost
Shocking Grasp
Mage Armour (Special: Mage Armour has the light and improvised weapon properties. Mage armour is now an abjuration cantrip rather than first level spell).

Mage Armour should get a Focus so that Wizards can wield a shield without giving them shield proficiency. So now, Dual Casting reads "Arcane Foci gain the light weapon property if they did not have this property already."

Now you don't need to add spellcaster as a heading. Or spellcaster could be written as: Cantrips are treated as Ranged attacks (or Melee attacks for shocking grasp and mage armour) and follow the rules for Making an Attack in Chapter 9. Extra attack now just becomes extra attack again.

As to my goals in this, I am simply trying to make the double standard wizard into a viable class that fulfils an archetype, In this case a commonly portrayed wizard type in fantasy. Longsword and Mage Armour arcane focus for example is like Gandalf's Longsword and staff combination. Making Arcane foci into weapons also makes it easier to make magic weapons such as in the Gandalf example his Mage Armour Arcane Focus allows him to cast Dancing lights, Light, Daylight, Protection from alignments as well as a few other goodies (examples of spells he casted in the books) but it is clearly a legendary grade focus That is attuned to him. A simpler example might be making a Mage Armour Focus of shielding which has 4 charges of the spell "shield" and on a long rest the focus gains those charges back.

I actually do believe you are in error, but not far off the mark with your premise that the fighter class is overly simplistic. I believe that the fighter suffers from identity syndrome (has lost a lot of speciality to allow other martial classes to be defined more clearly) and as a result has been used as a new person to D&D class. I don't actually think there is anything wrong with making a couple of simplistic options for the new player but I feel that in making the fighter the premier new person class it has diminished class mastery (fighter has a low floor and ceiling in terms of skill level). Battlemaster and Eldritch knight are clearly advanced fighter options in terms of skill level but I feel that the design team has erred on the side of caution in terms of skill expectations.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I might be misunderstanding him.

Or I didn't make it clear, crap happens you know.

But no, the new classes aren't meant to be balanced.

However with that said, if someone thinks the original classes are balanced wiyh each other then the new classes should be balanced to whomever thinks that way. This is a by product and not a design goal.



Dual casting can be made much more clearer if you just adjust it to read "Shocking grasp gains the light weapon property see chapter 5 for a description of this property."

Suggestions for the missing arcana names:
Manoeuvring attack: Mage hand
Riposte: Auto-cast
Sweeping Attack: Weave Arc

You could add second wind back into the class to bring it parity with fighter. A name suggestion I give is Arcane Well: You have a limited well of magic that you can draw on to protect you from harm. On your turn you can use a bonus action to regain hitpoints equal to 1d8+your wizard level. Once you use this feature you must finish a short or long rest until you can use it again.

Now, Onto a major design shift. I believe that instead of Allowing the wizard to gain cantrips, you make arcane foci into a weapon that gives the wizard that cantrip. So, when you want to cast Chill Touch, you must wield a chill touch arcane focus. This allows you to finally remove all but the six damaging cantrips. So, the rebuild in question would be:

Wizard
Make weapon proficiencies "Simple weapons and Foci"

Make the Following Arcane Foci as weapons:
Acid Splash
Chill Touch
Fire Bolt
Poison Spray
Ray of Frost
Shocking Grasp
Mage Armour (Special: Mage Armour has the light and improvised weapon properties. Mage armour is now an abjuration cantrip rather than first level spell).

Mage Armour should get a Focus so that Wizards can wield a shield without giving them shield proficiency. So now, Dual Casting reads "Arcane Foci gain the light weapon property if they did not have this property already."

Now you don't need to add spellcaster as a heading. Or spellcaster could be written as: Cantrips are treated as Ranged attacks (or Melee attacks for shocking grasp and mage armour) and follow the rules for Making an Attack in Chapter 9. Extra attack now just becomes extra attack again.

As to my goals in this, I am simply trying to make the double standard wizard into a viable class that fulfils an archetype, In this case a commonly portrayed wizard type in fantasy. Longsword and Mage Armour arcane focus for example is like Gandalf's Longsword and staff combination. Making Arcane foci into weapons also makes it easier to make magic weapons such as in the Gandalf example his Mage Armour Arcane Focus allows him to cast Dancing lights, Light, Daylight, Protection from alignments as well as a few other goodies (examples of spells he casted in the books) but it is clearly a legendary grade focus That is attuned to him. A simpler example might be making a Mage Armour Focus of shielding which has 4 charges of the spell "shield" and on a long rest the focus gains those charges back.


Illusion is that you are distracting an attacker with a minor magic trick right as they attack.

I need to reword things but I wouldn't want someone to be using this and new spells come out in a splat and they wouldn't be able to use said spells. Though, after thinking about it I think making specific schools work with specific cantrips is the way to go.

Duel Casting will be changed to work with touch cantrips, this will essentially only be Shocking Grasp but if someone wants to turn a spell like Poison Spray into Poison Touch then it will still work with this new spell.

That design shift is how I started before posting this but thought it might be too much of a change from the wizard. I actually have a list of cantrip and 1st level spells (with weight and how many hands it takea to wield the foci.

I actually like how you did it better than I did it and will work this in again. :)

One Change I will make to the Wizard is remove their armor proficiencies. They instead gain mage armor as a class feature.

Mage Armor: Your clothing is infused with magic making them protect you better. Your AC is 12 + Dex Modifier.

This gives the Mage the starting AC (14 Dex) of 14 and 15 with Abjuration which is a good AC for this game. If they want to boost their Dex (which they can easily do) then they can get up to 18 without magic items. (Mage robes will be a magic item). This is narratively nice and mechanically sound.

If the wizard wants to boost their AC even more then they can take the Archmage Arcana Parry (which will be named Shield if I haven't already named it that).

[Logosloki]

I like your mage armour idea better than mine, it also means you don't need to make a wonky focus that comes with a lot of goodies baked into it just to make it work. This also means you can safely remove light armour proficiency. Also that means abjuration can just stay you gain +1AC.

Illusion is in a weird place because of range issues. The fighter style Protection is clearly designed for people who are building a hoplite or another type of formation block trooper. It works well with heavily armoured classes who are wading into the melee and wanting to protect either someone part of their formation or giving cover to a flanker. Wizards aren't designed for melee, they are meant to be a short to mid ranged controller/blaster, so their kit should put them near melee but not in melee. I believe that Minor illusion should have a range of 20 feet. Either that or Wizards should be able to use Minor Illusion on themselves as well as a person who is 5 feet away.

Now that I think about it you are right about Dual Casting. It would be better to say it for cantrips with the range of touch that way if the DM cooks up a new touch cantrip focus or the inevitable splats bring in more touch damaging attacks they can be accommodated better.

[georgie_leech]

OP, I can agree in principle with what you're doing. I understand the point of this exercise isn't to homebrew something that people necessarily want to play. However, if you really are making a Wizard *cough*fighter*cough* it would be a good idea to actually compare at each level what Fighters can or can't do. It becomes a lot easier to dismiss your point when your re-skin, rather than being comparative to the original Fighter, is weaker in most aspects. It detracts from your point when you make a weaker Fighter and say "See? Fighters suck!" That makes it easy to miss the overall point and see a failed class rather than a failure in design principle.

To be clear, I agree that the gap in niche coverage between Fighters and Wizards in 5e is problematic (it's one of the reasons I actually enjoy 4e). This class doesn't illustrate the problem effectively.

[CrusaderJoe]

Illusion is in a weird place because of range issues. The fighter style Protection is clearly designed for people who are building a hoplite or another type of formation block trooper. It works well with heavily armoured classes who are wading into the melee and wanting to protect either someone part of their formation or giving cover to a flanker. Wizards aren't designed for melee, they are meant to be a short to mid ranged controller/blaster, so their kit should put them near melee but not in melee. I believe that Minor illusion should have a range of 20 feet. Either that or Wizards should be able to use Minor Illusion on themselves as well as a person who is 5 feet away.



Why not switch Illusion and Abjuration?

Illusion: You slightly alter your appearance or movements. This grants you +1 AC.

Abjuration: Works like Protection but you are reaching out with a focus and making a protective ward around the defender?

[CrusaderJoe]

OP, I can agree in principle with what you're doing. I understand the point of this exercise isn't to homebrew something that people necessarily want to play. However, if you really are making a Wizard *cough*fighter*cough* it would be a good idea to actually compare at each level what Fighters can or can't do. It becomes a lot easier to dismiss your point when your re-skin, rather than being comparative to the original Fighter, is weaker in most aspects. It detracts from your point when you make a weaker Fighter and say "See? Fighters suck!" That makes it easy to miss the overall point and see a failed class rather than a failure in design principle.

To be clear, I agree that the gap in niche coverage between Fighters and Wizards in 5e is problematic (it's one of the reasons I actually enjoy 4e). This class doesn't illustrate the problem effectively.

This wizard isn't much weaker than the current fighter, if it is weaker at all. They have slight differences, which keeps them in their narrative but I would say that this wizard keeps up with the fighter.

Really all it needs is Second Wind back, or some other not horrible mechanic, and it will do just fine.

[Yakk]

I'd replace second wind with some kind of magical shield or magical parry. Even as simple as a reaction that grants you 1d10+level temporary HP in response to being hit or failing a save.

That also opens up the abjurer (or other subclasses) to having a rider on it.