Convince Yourself!!

[djreynolds]

We have all played every installment of this game. When the D20 system came out, lots of fun. A real ease in the system. 3/3.5 and pathfinder had this base attack bonus, real cool.

I love those systems, but for me something was missing. There were too many specialists in this world, literally a specialist for every weapon or tactic. Wizards could blow up a city and whiff by a country mile hitting a barn with quarterstaff. I sold magic great swords to buy a plain old scimitar because four of my feats were dedicated to it. My rogue was feinting specialist with a bluff score few could match... aside from the spot specialist. I saw too many classes... too specialized.

5E allows for competition and parity. Every class is competitive with each other, there is some optimization available but its not out hand. Magic is hard to come by, magic items mean more.

If you like just playing the game, 5E is for you. Rolling dice is back!! The ability cap keeps the playing field level. Everyone's proficiency score scales equally.

I miss playing a weapon master, but in return my fighter can use the best weapon available again. I'm not living 4 levels ahead, but playing in the moment. 5E is about playing in the now.

[Talamare]

I'm confused...

Are you recommending that 5e players... convince themselves to play 5e?

[JellyPooga]

5E is about playing in the now.

So...you're saying that 5ed is the Daoism of D&D editions? Return to a simpler state, play in the now and be the uncarved...er, dice?

[ravenkith]

5E allows for competition and parity. Every class is competitive with each other, there is some optimization available but its not out hand.

I think you may be mistaken. Horribly, horribly mistaken. On both counts.

In 5E, as in any edition of this game we play, there are optimal choices to be made.

Simply put: Some combinations of races, backgrounds, class features and spell/ability/feat selections are always going to be more powerful or versatile than others, and thus, people will be inclined to choose those combinations, once identified, over others.

Some class and race combinations are completely out shined by other builds, and thus will rarely be played.

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

When it comes to feats, comparing each one against the others, mechanically, there are some that are clear winners, some that are clear losers, and some that can be made to work better than they should.
Some examples -
Winners: Magic Initiate, Alert, Lucky
Losers: Weapon Master, Grappler, Martial Adept, Durable
Workable: Great Weapon Master, Athlete, Inspiring Leader

Then, of course there are melee fighting types: while either of "Sword and Board" and "Two handing" can be useful in this edition, dual wielding gets RAPIDLY outclassed (Archery falls into a completely separate category, and must instead actually be compared to ranged cantrips).

TL;DR: "You think all things in 5e are created equal and optimization is dead? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.....Oh, you're serious. That makes this even funnier,"

[Joe the Rat]

I think it's less "I can optimize" as "I can do things besides what I am built for."

There' also flexibility on "what you do best". As an archery specialist, you can use a Longbow as easily as a Shortbow (race and class limits aside), as opposed to getting HUGE bonuses for one weapon, to where you are effectively gimped if you don't have that specific weapon available.

[Giant2005]

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

When it comes to feats, comparing each one against the others, mechanically, there are some that are clear winners, some that are clear losers, and some that can be made to work better than they should.
Some examples -
Winners: Magic Initiate, Alert, Lucky
Losers: Weapon Master, Grappler, Martial Adept, Durable
Workable: Great Weapon Master, Athlete, Inspiring Leader

I and probably many others would disagree with a lot of your personal preferences, probably due to our own values (preferring sustainability, or burst damage, or defense, or offense, or whatever). The mere fact that we have reason to disagree on your believed order of power suggests that the balance is far closer than you think.

[Falcon X]

I and probably many others would disagree with a lot of your personal preferences, probably due to our own values (preferring sustainability, or burst damage, or defense, or offense, or whatever). The mere fact that we have reason to disagree on your believed order of power suggests that the balance is far closer than you think.
Ditto to this. I was scratching my head reading your choices of which options were optimal. Many would disagree.

The point OP makes is that while some things might be better than others in 5e, nothing is game breakingly so. You know that just about anything you make won't feel worthless next to someone who is actively min/maxing.
In 3.X, we had a tier system that showed that classes more than 2 steps from each other were incompatible. In 5e, there are only 3 steps total, if that, so it will all work well enough together.

[Biggstick]

I and probably many others would disagree with a lot of your personal preferences, probably due to our own values (preferring sustainability, or burst damage, or defense, or offense, or whatever). The mere fact that we have reason to disagree on your believed order of power suggests that the balance is far closer than you think.

One hundred percent this. I've only started playing 5e since November of 2014 and I love that I don't have to spend hours and hours to make something actually doable. From the horror stories of what I've read about Pathfinder and 3.5, if you didn't make your character perfectly, you're dragging your party down and will get pretty much left behind. There is a bit of optimization to be sure in 5e, but the bonuses you're going to get are usually pretty small (A +1 to AC, a +1 or +2 to a spell dc, a +10-20 to your average DPR). Some might argue that the things I listed aren't small, and in some ways you'd be right. I think if every person works to build an absolutely min-maxed character, you're going to be able to achieve things as a group that you shouldn't be able to. But a group that isn't built optimally is still going to be achieve some pretty awesome things too. That is what's great about 5e. Anyone can step into the system and not feel stupid or extremely overwhelmed by books and can contribute in a meaningful way to the party.

[ravenkith]

I and probably many others would disagree with a lot of your personal preferences, probably due to our own values (preferring sustainability, or burst damage, or defense, or offense, or whatever). The mere fact that we have reason to disagree on your believed order of power suggests that the balance is far closer than you think.


Ditto to this. I was scratching my head reading your choices of which options were optimal. Many would disagree.

The point OP makes is that while some things might be better than others in 5e, nothing is game breakingly so. You know that just about anything you make won't feel worthless next to someone who is actively min/maxing.
In 3.X, we had a tier system that showed that classes more than 2 steps from each other were incompatible. In 5e, there are only 3 steps total, if that, so it will all work well enough together.

:smallsigh:

What exactly are you disagreeing with in terms of the mechanical superiority of one thing over another?

I don't think anyone would argue that Lucky, is strictly speaking, of more utility than Weapon Master, for instance. Or that in order to make Greater Weapon master useable in a system with bounded accuracy, figuring out some way to offset the loss in to-hit bonus is almost mandatory in order to make the feat really worth taking. Or for that matter, that Grappler, as a feat, is pretty much a hot mess, as two of the three benefits of the feat either don't make a lot of sense, or else end up hurting you as much as your opponent. This means that all you are really getting out of it are advantage on attack rolls against creatures you are grappling: woo. Yes, this is totally worth spending a feat on :annoyed: .

Fighting types: As a melee specialist, you should either be going all-out attack, in which case a two handed weapon with greater weapon master and a way to offset the to-hit loss is optimal for maximum damage every turn, or you should be going for maximum defense, in which case sword and board with shield mastery becomes the best choice.

Two-weapon fighting, even with dual wielder, is a middle of the road solution that cannot match either the defense of sword and board nor the massive damage afforded by two handed fighting. It essentially grants you an extra attack (while limiting the maximum size of your die type for that attack) and provides a solitary point of extra AC. Furthermore, it requires you to find TWO magic weapons that you can use well (probably at the cost of another party member), and makes it impossible to ever upgrade the defensive aspect of your fighting type, in stark contrast to sword and board.

THE CASE FOR MAX DAMAGE
Specifically (assuming both are vhuman fighters, note that the GWMer is NOT using his bonus action, while the twfer IS, and that NO NOVAS ARE IN EFFECT):
1st level: 1d12+15 (max 27) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 26)
5th Level: 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 (max 54) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 39)
11th: 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 (max 81) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 52)

Note that the maximum possible damage put out by the GWM fighter is roughly equal to that of the TWFer at first level, and superior thereafter. Also, since the GWMer isn't using his bonus action here, there is a possibility of him using other means to gain an extra attack with his bonus action (polearm master leaps to mind), thus widening the damage gap. Meanwhile, the TWFer is only ever one point better at defense than the GWFer - the tradeoff is not worth it, even assuming they are both using plate. If you then look at the underlying assumption that the TWFer will be a DEX based fighter and may choose NOT to use plate, he is only matched in AC, and not even superior by one point any more.

Granted, you could use hex on both these fighting types, but in essence, you would be trading AWAY 15 points of damage for 1d6 at level 5, and 29 points for 1d6 at level 11.....for the record, this is not a good trade.

THE CASE FOR MAX DEFENSE
First, since Shield Mastery grants evasion AND the ability to add your shield mod to your reflex save as a reaction, Dual wielding is instantly outclassed. However, ignoring those two benefits:

At level 1: Plate + Shield (20) vs Plate + TWF Bonus (19)
with + 1 magic items: Plate + 1 + shield + 1 (22) vs Plate + 1 + TWF bonus (20)
+2: (24) vs (21)
+3: (26) vs (22)

*In addition, since shield mastery ALSO grants a shove attack as a bonus action, while this style is behind in terms of pure max damage, it can allow you to grant advantage to yourself on attacks, which the TWFer cannot do.

So lets talk about classes. Battle master is better than Champion.

Champion provides static bonuses at fixed levels, and basically focuses completely on improved criticals. It also grants remarkable athlete (a weak ass jack of all trades) and an extra fighting style. While yes, the abilities of the class do eventually triple the likelihood of you rolling a critical hit (sounds awesome, doesn't it), the luster comes off a bit when you realize that you've gone from a 5% chance to a 15% one. That's it.

Battlemaster, on the other hand, gives you maneuvers. Granted, only 6 per short rest (sort of: at 20th you gain one every time you roll init and don't have one), so it's not like you get them on every attack, but what they allow you to do is nothing short of game-changing. At max level, they can:
1. constitute up to a 12 point increase in your attack roll.
2. constitute up to a 12 point increase in your AC.
3. Reduce damage dealt to you by up to 17 points.
4. Convey advantage to your allies.
5. Make your enemies run in terror
6. Force your enemies to attack only you

At lower levels, only the effectiveness of options 1, 2 and 3 are reduced: they are still available.

Believe me when I say I have reasons for evaluating things the way that I did.

Probably the most controversial and hardest of the assessments that I made was the one on Paladins:

The Nature paladin's ability to grant magic resistance is amazingly powerful, but the limiting factor of it only helping you resist damage from spells and the relative weakness of it's channel divinity option (1 use, single target, multiple saves) and it's one use "I'm not dead yet" pushed it down the board. Compare this to Devotion paladin, which gets up to +5 to attacks for a minute, immunity to charms, permanent protect evil and good (Aberrations, Celestials, elementals, fey, fiends and undead all get disadvantage on attack rolls, and you cannot be frightened, charmed or possessed by them). Then compare it to the Vengeance paladin, which gets either Advantage on all attack rolls for one minute, or the ability to make an enemy cower in abject fear, unable to move at all for one minute, as well as the ability to move as part of an opportunity attack, and the ability to attack your chosen enemy as a reaction to their attacks.

Granted, it would be pretty easy to move Nature ahead of Vengeance here, but I made a judgement call that a Paladin in a party would be more likely to fall into the role of primary damage dealer (tank with smite), and would more likely be effective in eliminating a threat through dealing damage enough to kill them on the front lines (made significantly easier via advantage on every attack), than by standing in the middle of the party so that everyone can benefit from the 10ft no direct damage spells aura. (This follows the theory that the best method of preventing damage is rendering the foe incapable of causing it - something that has held true since 1e).

Is there anything else in particular that you disagree with?

[Lines]

I and probably many others would disagree with a lot of your personal preferences, probably due to our own values (preferring sustainability, or burst damage, or defense, or offense, or whatever). The mere fact that we have reason to disagree on your believed order of power suggests that the balance is far closer than you think.

He's right about most of it, though there are some glaring exceptions, especially paladin wise - retribution paladin has the best spell list, for example, and oath of devotion's +cha to attacks is somewhat devalued by requiring an action to activate, while in the right campaign the ancients aura makes the subclass entirely by itself, while shadow monk is as useful in open hand in its own way. The rest seems pretty spot on though, any points of disagreement?

[JNAProductions]

5E is very well balanced. Is it perfect? Hell no. Are some options better than others? Yes.

But the thing is, EVERY OPTION is compatible with each other. Short of intentionally trying to gimp yourself, you'll be able to contribute and have fun.

[Giant2005]

Is there anything else in particular that you disagree with?

This is how I'd rate the sample you gave.

Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Beastmaster Ranger>Hunter Ranger
Battlemaster=Champion (Depends entirely on the camign, or more specifically your group's resting tendencies)
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Vengeance>Nature>Devotion

[Lines]

This is how I'd rate the sample you gave.

Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Beastmaster Ranger>Hunter Ranger
Battlemaster=Champion (Depends entirely on the camign, or more specifically your group's resting tendencies)
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Vengeance>Nature>Devotion

The beastmaster has a pet that will sit there and refuse to attack unless specifically commanded to every six seconds, you can command it to attack the elf trying to murder you 9 times in a minute but if you don't do it again once 6 seconds have passed, the pet doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. How is that good?

Champion wise, it in no way compares. You get no active abilities, which means you have no ability to choose based on the situation - a battlemaster can activate an ability when most necessary, a champion is stuck hoping he rolls high, and the slightly increased damage from crits in no way cancels out the roughly equal damage from battlemaster, not to mention the utility it gets. Sure, the battlemaster's scaling is appalling because WotC really seems to hate fun at times, but when it gets poor the eldritch knight gets good. Go early you want a battlemaster, go late you want an eldritch knight, never is a champion a either fun or good.

Rest seems fine, don't necessarily agree with it but it's a matter of opinion as opposed to the clearly crap options mentioned above.

[JNAProductions]

Champion has a bunch of options-they just aren't on the character sheet. They're in the PHB.

[Lines]

Champion has a bunch of options-they just aren't on the character sheet. They're in the PHB.

I'm sorry, what? They have no active abilities from champion, leaving them with the general actions each character has that become less and less worth using (seriously if you wanted to have tripping be useful the battlemaster's right there) and the same non discrete DM ruled toolkit every being in D&D has. In what way does champion have a bunch of options?

[woodlandkammao]

The thing about beastmaster is that it levels differently to most classes. It's almost like the linear vs quadratic progression of old. If you play tactically, a level 7+ beastmaster is very competitive, and a level 11+ beastmaster is incredible. When people say it sucks, they mean the first 5 levels are RUBBISH. most Dnd is actually played at the low levels, so this is what it's known for.

[JNAProductions]

I'm sorry, what? They have no active abilities from champion, leaving them with the general actions each character has that become less and less worth using (seriously if you wanted to have tripping be useful the battlemaster's right there) and the same non discrete DM ruled toolkit every being in D&D has. In what way does champion have a bunch of options?

Because the system itself has a bunch of options, and the Champion (with extra attacks and Remarkable Athlete) is one of the best for taking advantage of them. Grappling, for instance, is really damn useful, and there are rules in the DMG for things like sundering, tripping, disarming, and a whole lot of other stuff.

So I agree, the Champion doesn't get extra options. That's not the same as not having options.

[Elderand]

Because the system itself has a bunch of options, and the Champion (with extra attacks and Remarkable Athlete) is one of the best for taking advantage of them. Grappling, for instance, is really damn useful, and there are rules in the DMG for things like sundering, tripping, disarming, and a whole lot of other stuff.

So I agree, the Champion doesn't get extra options. That's not the same as not having options.

To paraphrase. the champion doesn't get extra options, he's just better able to take advantage of existing ones.

[Lines]

The thing about beastmaster is that it levels differently to most classes. It's almost like the linear vs quadratic progression of old. If you play tactically, a level 7+ beastmaster is very competitive, and a level 11+ beastmaster is incredible. When people say it sucks, they mean the first 5 levels are RUBBISH. most Dnd is actually played at the low levels, so this is what it's known for.

Level 11 still isn't great. It's when a lot of other classes are receiving a boost too and it does give you a nice boost in that you now get one attack of your own plus two of your beasts (be better if the beast could multiattack), but you're still not getting anything more than the other classes are - an extra attack for fighter, 1d8 damage on every attack for paladin. If the base is worse and the increase is the same, the result is still worse - begins to equal with the hunter in terms of single target damage by that point, though the hunter now gets aoe so it stays ahead.


Because the system itself has a bunch of options, and the Champion (with extra attacks and Remarkable Athlete) is one of the best for taking advantage of them. Grappling, for instance, is really damn useful, and there are rules in the DMG for things like sundering, tripping, disarming, and a whole lot of other stuff.

So I agree, the Champion doesn't get extra options. That's not the same as not having options.

Those options are not things that grace most games. Now, tell me how a champion is in any way better than a battlemaster? A level 7 champion and a level 7 battlemaster are both going to have a +8 bonus to their grapple check.

[JNAProductions]

Easy. Third encounter after a short rest. Battlemaster is all out of superiority dice, so is stuck with a 5% crit rate (about 10% with advantage after Shoving someone prone) and nothing else. Whereas our Champion over here has nearly 20% crit rate (after Shoving prone, again) making it liable to happen at least once a combat.

And here's the big thing-with the rest cycle most tables have, yes, Battlemaster is better. But Champion is 100% viable, and won't be left in the dust just because a better option exists.

[busterswd]

In 5E, as in any edition of this game we play, there are optimal choices to be made.

Simply put: Some combinations of races, backgrounds, class features and spell/ability/feat selections are always going to be more powerful or versatile than others, and thus, people will be inclined to choose those combinations, once identified, over others.

But that's already a huge improvement over 3.5. Something being "better" in terms of number crunching doesn't make the other choice "wrong" as long as it's functional. There were a ton of outright nonfunctional choices in 3.5. Picking a Devotion Pally or an Elemental Monk still means you have a character that achieves what you want it to do that can contribute in combat.

You're never going to achieve perfect parity in a system, and that's not a bad thing. The game isn't always about eking about the highest numbers possible.

[ravenkith]

5E is very well balanced. Is it perfect? Hell no. Are some options better than others? Yes.

But the thing is, EVERY OPTION is compatible with each other. Short of intentionally trying to gimp yourself, you'll be able to contribute and have fun.

There are a couple of absolute rules regarding D&D (including 5th edition) that kind of argues against this.

1. Spells are still king.

Any time you have the option to add spells to something, you should really take the time to evaluate it before passing.

While fighter's battlemaster and eldritch knight can lead to some debate, there is no doubt that having access to spells is 9/10 superior to not having them, long term.

Full spellcaster classes still enjoy massive benefits over non-casters in terms of flexibility and self improvement, although admittedly, the difference is not QUITE as much as in prior editions.

9th level spells destroy the game (as always).

2. Action economy is key.

Any time you get to add to the number of actions you can take in a single turn, you'd better take a long hard look at it. Features like action surge, cunning action, and the options martial arts grants are all very powerful in terms of altering the action economy (dodge as a bonus action for 1 point of Ki is pretty beefy, as it is otherwise a full action).

3. Killing the enemy as fast as possible is always preferable.

If an enemy is dead, he cannot do ANYTHING to hurt you. It is better to kill as many enemies as you can on your turn than almost any other action, with the exception of otherwise rendering a large number of enemies unable to hurt you, say by, cutting down a bridge, or putting up a wall.

Of course, all these things taken together create some sub rules:

A. Summoning is awesome (Especially in 5e).

Summoning-type spells, animate objects and animate dead, in particular, are really nasty options in clever hands (personal favorite is using a 3rd level spell to summon giant poisonous save-for-half snakes in a circle around a non-immune target - yields eight attacks, dealing up to 8d4+32+24d6/round for up to an hour. (In reality, the enemy will most likely see about half this damage, and also will most likely just kill the snakes - but if he's attacking the snakes, he's not attacking you or your allies).

B. Novas are good things to have.

'Peace through Superior Firepower'. Rate of fire. BFG 9000. Nuclear weapons. The best quote for this is from Aliens: "Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Essentially: the quicker you can pile damage onto your enemy, the quicker he is dead, the quicker he is unable to do anything to harm you and your allies. It doesn't matter if you used up 90% of your expendable resources if the big bad dies in the first 6 seconds of combat and never gets off his shot.

C. Mind control can be very useful.

The ability to turn an enemy into an ally on the fly will never go out of style, because it denies the foe (the dm) the extra actions the creature would have given him and adds them to the stockpile of your own. Note that this is of reduced utility in 5e, because it is pretty hard to make happen: Geas, Modify Memory, and the warlocks thrall ability are the best of a bad bunch here. Note that fear is a weaker version of mind control, in that, apllied properly, it denies the DM use of a critter's set of actions for a time - however, a cunning DM will simply use this against you by making the fleeing critter go fetch reinforcements.

It is important to note that, the balancing factors in D&D 5e are that:

1. Spellcasters have no reliable way to cast multiple spells (cantrips don't count) every round. While action surge will allow you to get off a 2-spell first round nova with two levels of investment, and quicken spell gives you two cantrips a round (combining the two gets you one actual spell and two cantrips in the first round of combat).

2. Spell lists for classes have been pared down and 'combos' have been heavily selected against. For example, while Sorcerors get quicken and twin, they don't have summons. While wizards have summons, they don't get metamagic. While druids get wildshape, they can't cast in it until way late game, as opposed to at 2nd level.

This means that they HAD to nerf spells in order to balance every other non-casting class and (here's a shocker) it still wasn't enough.

For instance: is there anyone in their right mind who's going to bet their money that a level 15 straight barbarian is going to beat a level 15 wizard? (Full disclosure: 200ft featureless cube, opposite ends to start, no magic items).

Yeah, you can still contribute with ANY build (in the same way that a cheerleader contributes to an NFL team winning) but that was true in 3.5, too.

[MaxWilson]

In 5E, as in any edition of this game we play, there are optimal choices to be made.

Simply put: Some combinations of races, backgrounds, class features and spell/ability/feat selections are always going to be more powerful or versatile than others, and thus, people will be inclined to choose those combinations, once identified, over others.

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

When it comes to feats, comparing each one against the others, mechanically, there are some that are clear winners, some that are clear losers, and some that can be made to work better than they should.
Some examples -
Winners: Magic Initiate, Alert, Lucky
Losers: Weapon Master, Grappler, Martial Adept, Durable
Workable: Great Weapon Master, Athlete, Inspiring Leader


You're undermining your own argument by posting weak choices as "winners" and terrific choices as "workable." Clearly, there is no globally optimal choice or you wouldn't have different rankings than others do--the local optimum is determined by playstyle, party composition, and the nature of the challenges you face.

In my experience,

Shadow monk ~= Death Monk
Shadow monk >> Open Hand Monk
Open Hand ~= Elemental Monk

I have no idea why you think open hand is the best, and that's the point: there's probably something going on at your table that makes Open Hand better than it would otherwise be.

Ditto for your ranking of Devotion > Vengeance.

There are some options in 5E which are trash, but none which are globally optimal.

[Biggstick]

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

When it comes to feats, comparing each one against the others, mechanically, there are some that are clear winners, some that are clear losers, and some that can be made to work better than they should.
Some examples -
Winners: Magic Initiate, Alert, Lucky
Losers: Weapon Master, Grappler, Martial Adept, Durable
Workable: Great Weapon Master, Athlete, Inspiring Leader

While some of your picks here are superior to others, I disagree with the flat assumption that they're always better. A well built Champion for example, is going to definitely compete with a Battlemaster (Half Orc, Sentinel, Shieldmaster is an easy example and combination of abilities that would have a champion easily able to attack with a good chance of knocking the enemy prone first).

I'm not a super knowledgeable person concerning Rogues, but I know that each arch type has significant use in different situations. None are "that" much better then the other.

As for Paladins, each one is more useful depending on the campaign. There is no arch type that is straight "better" then the others.



Your examples for feats are also flawed as well. Does a Barbarian find any use at all from Magic Initiate? A Barbarian would see your "workable" Great Weapon Master and laugh at the "Generate Advantage" requirement. You place Durable in the Loser bracket and have Athlete in the workable? Durable in a gritty campaign is going to be extremely useful (I'm thinking the ones with short/long rest variants of 1 week long rests). You also place Inspiring Leader in the workable class; I'd place it in the winning class for charisma based casters who only need to max charisma. Having anywhere from 2-25 temporary hp for the entire party that refreshes on a short rest is EXTREMELY useful and desirable in any party. I also see no mention of Sentinel, Shieldmaster, Sharpshooter, or Warcaster anywhere in this list.



Overall, I think every choice is going to be usable in some way. There are a couple choices that are really good, but depending on the particular campaign you're in, everything is potentially useful.

[ravenkith]

Easy. Third encounter after a short rest. Battlemaster is all out of superiority dice, so is stuck with a 5% crit rate (about 10% with advantage after Shoving someone prone) and nothing else. Whereas our Champion over here has nearly 20% crit rate (after Shoving prone, again) making it liable to happen at least once a combat.

And here's the big thing-with the rest cycle most tables have, yes, Battlemaster is better. But Champion is 100% viable, and won't be left in the dust just because a better option exists.

Champion is pretty much made of dogturds, sorry. :smalleek:


Bear with me for a moment. Assume a level 3 fighter, 1 battlemaster, 1 champion, both using the same weapons and fighting type (great weapon - note, leaving STYLE out of it).

Champion makes 1 attack a round. He has a 10% chance of crit. In ten rounds (at random), he will add 1d12 extra damage.

Battlemaster with the Distracting Strike, Precision Attack and Disarming Attack maneuvers, OTOH, can, ON COMMAND, use distracting strike, adding 1d8 damage and giving advantage to the next attack against the individual by an ally, 4 times in that same ten round period. (that's 4d8 as opposed to 1d12). He also has a 5% chance to crit, so he might also add a d12 to damage at random.

Alternatively, he could attempt to disarm the foe, allowing an ally to pick up the weapon, thus denying the opponent even the ability to properly attack.

Or, if he find's himself having difficulty hitting the foe, he can increase his to hit with precision attack instead.

The real key here is the fact that battlemaster CHOOSES WHEN TO ADD THE DAMAGE. He can decide whether to spend all 4d8 against a single, hard to beat monster if he wants to, whereas the Champion gets his extra damage COMPLETELY AT RANDOM. It is just as likely that the champion will waste his crit against a 2 hp critter as the 52 hp polar bear, whereas the battlemaster can put all of it on the polar bear.

Add in that champion is supposed to be a viable choice when compared to Eldritch Knight as well as battle master, and it's total dogturdiness can be fully appreciated.

[JNAProductions]

Question-have you played 5E, Ravenkith? Because I've played Champion Fighters. And it was fun. And ultimately, that's what matters.

[CantigThimble]

The 'worst' subclasses are really only marginally less effective than the 'best' subclasses. If you have a party with 'best' subclass characters and 'worst' subclass characters the 'best' will still only be outshining the 'worst' by a fairly slim margin. As long as the basic functionality of short vs long rests is maintained and the party is facing a variety of enemies and situations most archetypes will be pretty close in power level.

[Biggstick]

Champion is pretty much made of dogturds, sorry. :smalleek:


Bear with me for a moment. Assume a level 3 fighter, 1 battlemaster, 1 champion, both using the same weapons and fighting type (great weapon - note, leaving STYLE out of it).

Champion makes 1 attack a round. He has a 10% chance of crit. In ten rounds (at random), he will add 1d12 extra damage.

Battlemaster with the Distracting Strike, Precision Attack and Disarming Attack maneuvers, OTOH, can, ON COMMAND, use distracting strike, adding 1d8 damage and giving advantage to the next attack against the individual by an ally, 4 times in that same ten round period. (that's 4d8 as opposed to 1d12). He also has a 5% chance to crit, so he might also add a d12 to damage at random.

Alternatively, he could attempt to disarm the foe, allowing an ally to pick up the weapon, thus denying the opponent even the ability to properly attack.

Or, if he find's himself having difficulty hitting the foe, he can increase his to hit with precision attack instead.

The real key here is the fact that battlemaster CHOOSES WHEN TO ADD THE DAMAGE. He can decide whether to spend all 4d8 against a single, hard to beat monster if he wants to, whereas the Champion gets his extra damage COMPLETELY AT RANDOM. It is just as likely that the champion will waste his crit against a 2 hp critter as the 52 hp polar bear, whereas the battlemaster can put all of it on the polar bear.

Add in that champion is supposed to be a viable choice when compared to Eldritch Knight as well as battle master, and it's total dogturdiness can be fully appreciated.

Champion is a solid no frills option. You don't have to spend time figuring out anything with dropping weapons or granting advantage to an ally or meta-gaming the AC of an enemy with your precision attack. It will consistently put out the same thing every round of every combat. This is where feats can become a big part of the fighter's repertoire. Obviously a Battlemaster also has access to the same feats, but a Champion's abilities are always on. A Champion will pick feats that help them control a battle (sentinel, shieldmaster, etc etc) or feats that help them amplify their damage even more (great weapon master, sharpshooter). These are something that are always on for the Champion, and they'll consistently be able to perform at their best. A Battlemaster has to manage those resources, and if he's out of superiority dice, he's not going to bring the same presence to a party.

[ravenkith]

While some of your picks here are superior to others, I disagree with the flat assumption that they're always better. A well built Champion for example, is going to definitely compete with a Battlemaster (Half Orc, Sentinel, Shieldmaster is an easy example and combination of abilities that would have a champion easily able to attack with a good chance of knocking the enemy prone first).

Champion = dog turd. See my other post for why.



I'm not a super knowledgeable person concerning Rogues, but I know that each arch type has significant use in different situations. None are "that" much better then the other.


Your understanding of rogues is horribly inaccurate:
Rule #1: Access to spells is ALWAYS better than not having access to spells. The more you have, and the higher level they are, and the earlier you get them, the better it is.

Arcane trickster gets spells, starting at 4th level. Thief gets wands and staves, starting at 13th. Assassin never gets them.

In addition, Assassin is a one trick pony that is playing in a game that doesn't mesh well with it's trick, and it's abilities are pretty laughable.

3rd level: You get advantage once (or twice, if you get a surprise round) per combat. You get a critical if your target is surprised.
Congratulations, you have True strike as a class feature. If you get surprise (harder than you might think), you get to roll twice damage (usually once per combat) -OR- someone could cast hold person on your target and you and everyone else could have crits for ten rounds straight.

9th: False Identities.
Um, I think the wizard gets this at level 3. Disguise self? Oh, it's 1st level? Damn. Deception skill? Disguise kit? What are these things you speak of?

What do you mean he can pretend to be someone who exists?

What's a charlatan background?

13th: Impostor
Ok. Soooo now you've finally caught up with that level 1 background. Nice to see you're putting the effort in. (I think you get the point).

17th: Death strike
Double damage on one attack if they fail a con save? That's awesome!

No, wait, a Druid can make that happen with a 5th level spell called contagion...by giving his victim vulnerability to all damage...which gives EVERYONE and EVERY SINGLE ATTACK AGAINST them double damage. (At level 9, btw.)

As I said, the assassin archetype and it's abilities are LAUGHABLE.



As for Paladins, each one is more useful depending on the campaign. There is no arch type that is straight "better" then the others.


This is also incorrect, as I outlined previously.



Your examples for feats are also flawed as well. Does a Barbarian find any use at all from Magic Initiate? A Barbarian would see your "workable" Great Weapon Master and laugh at the "Generate Advantage" requirement.


A clever player will ALWAYS find a way to use Magic Initiate to their benefit: that's why it's a 'winner'. For example, A barbarian could use magic initiate to pick up Guidance, Spare the dying, and Cure or Healing word for out of combat. Alternatively, he could pick up Guidance, Produce Flame and Faerie Fire/Light, Message and Feather Fall/Light, Message and either Find Familiar or Fog Cloud or Comprehend Languages. I'm not saying that he WOULD, but if he did, he would find useful things to do with the feat: that's why the feat is a winner: even on the most suboptimal base class, it can still be put to use.

As a side note, barbarians get advantage on melee attacks starting at level 2: they have a built in accuracy mitigator, and so can inherently make good use of GWM.




You place Durable in the Loser bracket and have Athlete in the workable? Durable in a gritty campaign is going to be extremely useful (I'm thinking the ones with short/long rest variants of 1 week long rests). You also place Inspiring Leader in the workable class; I'd place it in the winning class for charisma based casters who only need to max charisma. Having anywhere from 2-25 temporary hp for the entire party that refreshes on a short rest is EXTREMELY useful and desirable in any party. I also see no mention of Sentinel, Shieldmaster, Sharpshooter, or Warcaster anywhere in this list.


Ok, this wasn't meant to be an exhaustive study on every single choice you can make: That's why only some feats appear. I was just trying to make a point that optimization is alive and well in 5e, and some things are clearly suboptimal.

That said:

1. Durable comes into play infrequently: the recovery mechanic for short and long rests is pretty robust as is. The feat adds little to the mechanic, in my experience, is heavily dependant on your con mod, and the opportunity cost is huge. At best, you will guarantee yourself 2-10 hp per recovery dice per long rest (max 10 HP at first level, up to 200HP at 20th). Compare if you will, Durable as opposed to Lucky. Durable helps you get hit points back, but only when you get to rest, and only as long as you have recovery dice available for the purpose. Lucky can help you hit when you otherwise would have missed, can help you avoid damage you otherwise would have taken, and succeed at tasks where you otherwise would have failed. One is active and versatile, the other is reactive and heavily constrained, and of little use at lower levels, where most people play.

If you are looking for something to specifically help you heal, especially at lower levels and with low con mods, the Healer feat is arguably of greater benefit, as it allows you to ADD an extra 1d6+4 healing as opposed to just give you a minimum amount from dice you will already get, and can be used on multiple characters (In a party of 4, this feat is worth up to 40HP at first level) as long as the number of heal kits hold out (and that's a terrible feat).

Athlete is not a great feat. At all. But you can build a character to take advantage of the feat in order to do some crazy ****. Athlete + proficiency + a high str means you'll be able to climb any wall at your base movement rate. Put this on someone with expeditious retreat or enough fast movement, and get them to run up a high enough wall and EITHER jump off, leaping to the attack, OR drop something on top of the enemy.

Then the question becomes: how does your DM adjudicate falling damage rules. At 1d6 per 10ft, on a Barbarian with resistance, this becomes a surprisingly good tactic to add damage, especially if you have a reach weapon and can attack the enemy before the enemy gets an attack on you, for instance. You can also mitigate damage if you have a ring of featherfall that you can trigger after the hit. It's a VERY specific build, but if you put a ton of resources into it, and the death from above rules apply at your table, then you can make it work. Hence the 'workable' tag - as in, it takes 'work' for it to be of use.

It's a similar story with Inspiring Leader: you have to build your character to take advantage of it, in that in order for it to be worth it, you kind of have to have maximum charisma. This means that it's good on a sorceror, bard or paladin, but is probably a choice to avoid if you don't have another reason to max charisma, especially since it doesn't stack with itself. It also has a significant opportunity cost, in that the classes that can best take advantage of the feat are those that can least likely afford to burn an ASI on it.



Overall, I think every choice is going to be usable in some way. There are a couple choices that are really good, but depending on the particular campaign you're in, everything is potentially useful.

Sorry, but some choices are clearly worse than others.

[JNAProductions]

Sorry, but some choices are clearly worse than others.

But not to any major degree. Yes, I agree with you-5E is not perfectly balanced. Not all choices are equal. But you can play a "bad character" and still be a contributing member.

[mephnick]

The beastmaster has a pet that will sit there and refuse to attack unless specifically commanded to every six seconds, you can command it to attack the elf trying to murder you 9 times in a minute but if you don't do it again once 6 seconds have passed, the pet doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. How is that good?

It feels weird but how does that effect the class mechanically? It mostly just allows you to be in two places at once, choosing when and how to use your attacks. The pet attacks generally come with riders that your ranger can't perform. It gives you battlefield positioning and control. It gives you a melee presence while allowing you to fight from afar. As a melee ranger it gives you a partner. It gives you options that the hunter doesn't have and all you lose is a couple of tricks of varying use.

Everyone who thinks the Beastmaster is a weak class just can't get over the gamey aspect of the mechanics. The power level of the subclass is fine. Just because you don't like some design choices doesn't mean the class is mechanically weak.

[Lines]

But that's already a huge improvement over 3.5. Something being "better" in terms of number crunching doesn't make the other choice "wrong" as long as it's functional. There were a ton of outright nonfunctional choices in 3.5. Picking a Devotion Pally or an Elemental Monk still means you have a character that achieves what you want it to do that can contribute in combat.

You're never going to achieve perfect parity in a system, and that's not a bad thing. The game isn't always about eking about the highest numbers possible.

Nobody said it was. If you close your eyes and squint, expect unrealistic amounts of encounters and ignore the part where they can't choose to activate it, champions technically outdamage battlemasters, that's not why they're crap.


It feels weird but how does that effect the class mechanically? It mostly just allows you to be in two places at once, choosing when and how to use your attacks. The pet attacks generally come with riders that your ranger can't perform. It gives you battlefield positioning and control. It gives you a melee presence while allowing you to fight from afar. As a melee ranger it gives you a partner. It gives you options that the hunter doesn't have and all you lose is a couple of tricks of varying use.

Everyone who thinks the Beastmaster is a weak class just can't get over the gamey aspect of the mechanics. The power level of the subclass is fine. Just because you don't like some design choices doesn't mean the class is mechanically weak.
No, it's mechanically weak because all it's doing is replacing your second attack with another attack, it's basically a sidegrade and one that depends on a creature with half the HP a wizard has that has to be on the frontlines to do damage.


Easy. Third encounter after a short rest. Battlemaster is all out of superiority dice, so is stuck with a 5% crit rate (about 10% with advantage after Shoving someone prone) and nothing else. Whereas our Champion over here has nearly 20% crit rate (after Shoving prone, again) making it liable to happen at least once a combat.

And here's the big thing-with the rest cycle most tables have, yes, Battlemaster is better. But Champion is 100% viable, and won't be left in the dust just because a better option exists.
Sure, it's still playable if boring. But that's not what we were discussing, we were discussing whether it was the worst fighter subclass which yes, it very much is.

[JNAProductions]

Nobody said it was. If you close your eyes and squint, expect unrealistic amounts of encounters and ignore the part where they can't choose to activate it, champions technically outdamage battlemasters, that's not why they're crap.

What's being said is that Fighter is a good choice. Even without a subclass, you still kick enough ass to be a valued member of the party.

The same was not true of 3rd Edition. Put an ordinary Fighter and a Wizard in the same party, and by 10th level, the Wizard will be dominating every encounter.

[MaxWilson]

It feels weird but how does that effect the class mechanically? It mostly just allows you to be in two places at once, choosing when and how to use your attacks. The pet attacks generally come with riders that your ranger can't perform. It gives you battlefield positioning and control. It gives you a melee presence while allowing you to fight from afar. As a melee ranger it gives you a partner. It gives you options that the hunter doesn't have and all you lose is a couple of tricks of varying use.

Everyone who thinks the Beastmaster is a weak class just can't get over the gamey aspect of the mechanics. The power level of the subclass is fine. Just because you don't like some design choices doesn't mean the class is mechanically weak.

Absolutely. Fortunately the flavor is fixable without affecting the mechanics.

As for mechanical power, try a Mage Armored king cobra (A.C. 19 at third level) operating inside of his Ranger's Fog Cloud. He's extremely hard to damage (AC 19, disadvantage to melee attackers) and he hits like a truck: +8 to hit with advantage from blindsight for d4+6 piercing +3d6 poison (save for half). Take Healer on the ranger and you're golden: unlimited pop-up heals of your snake.

[Lines]

What's being said is that Fighter is a good choice. Even without a subclass, you still kick enough ass to be a valued member of the party.

The same was not true of 3rd Edition. Put an ordinary Fighter and a Wizard in the same party, and by 10th level, the Wizard will be dominating every encounter.

I have never once disagreed with that, I like the ceiling being much closer to the floor in 5e. The discussion was whether champion was a worse choice, which it is. And I should note that a champion fighter does damage while a fighter can do damage, do a bunch of other useful things in combat and on top of that can fly, breathe underwater and teleport across continents or to other planes. The gap might have narrowed enough that the champion can participate, but it's definitely not so narrow that it's anywhere near as useful.

[bid]

THE CASE FOR MAX DAMAGE
Specifically (assuming both are vhuman fighters, note that the GWMer is NOT using his bonus action, while the twfer IS, and that NO NOVAS ARE IN EFFECT):
1st level: 1d12+15 (max 27) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 26)
5th Level: 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 (max 54) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 39)
11th: 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 and 1d12+15 (max 81) vs 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 and 1d8+5 (max 52)

Note that the maximum possible damage put out by the GWM fighter is roughly equal to that of the TWFer at first level, and superior thereafter. Also, since the GWMer isn't using his bonus action here, there is a possibility of him using other means to gain an extra attack with his bonus action (polearm master leaps to mind), thus widening the damage gap. Meanwhile, the TWFer is only ever one point better at defense than the GWFer - the tradeoff is not worth it, even assuming they are both using plate. If you then look at the underlying assumption that the TWFer will be a DEX based fighter and may choose NOT to use plate, he is only matched in AC, and not even superior by one point any more.
That's fantasy, as if the -5 to hit didn't exist.

At best, when TWF always hits (that miss on 1 compensate for the crit on 20), you should hit 75% of the time:
- 20 vs 26
- 40 vs 39
- 60 vs 52
So, the terrible mistake of using TWF on a fighter means you're doing 10% less damage on targets so easy to hit it's not even worth calling a battle. If that's the best you can do in actual circumstances, GWM doesn't look that OP.


If there are dead-ends a noob could reach, none are of the caliber of 3.5's.

[ravenkith]

That's fantasy, as if the -5 to hit didn't exist.

At best, when TWF always hits (that miss on 1 compensate for the crit on 20), you should hit 75% of the time:
- 20 vs 26
- 40 vs 39
- 60 vs 52
So, the terrible mistake of using TWF on a fighter means you're doing 10% less damage on targets so easy to hit it's not even worth calling a battle. If that's the best you can do in actual circumstances, GWM doesn't look that OP.


If there are dead-ends a noob could reach, none are of the caliber of 3.5's.

I personally would NEVER build around GWM without some way to offset the accuracy loss. Precision Attack/Paladin of Devotion or Vengeance, Barbarian rage (lvl 2) - each of these are viable ways of doing this. It is also possible to arrange to get advantage through clever play. If you're really hard up, you can reach to get a familiar with Magic Initiate, and have it aid you on attacks, at least in theory.

However, adding these wrinkles would complicate things unnecessarily for the purpose of highlighting the MAXIMUM DAMAGE argument.

[Giant2005]

The beastmaster has a pet that will sit there and refuse to attack unless specifically commanded to every six seconds, you can command it to attack the elf trying to murder you 9 times in a minute but if you don't do it again once 6 seconds have passed, the pet doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing. How is that good?
It is good because it out-damages everyone else around.



Champion wise, it in no way compares. You get no active abilities, which means you have no ability to choose based on the situation - a battlemaster can activate an ability when most necessary, a champion is stuck hoping he rolls high, and the slightly increased damage from crits in no way cancels out the roughly equal damage from battlemaster, not to mention the utility it gets. Sure, the battlemaster's scaling is appalling because WotC really seems to hate fun at times, but when it gets poor the eldritch knight gets good. Go early you want a battlemaster, go late you want an eldritch knight, never is a champion a either fun or good.

You have a fair point, but I wasn't judging on how fun something is, but rather how effective it is. If your team does a lot of resting, then there is no way that a Champion can keep up with a Battlemaster, but if you don't do a lot of resting, then the opposite is true. That is why I rated them as equals - they each have their niche and one can easily excel over the other depending on the game it is played in.

[djreynolds]

I'm confused...

Are you recommending that 5e players... convince themselves to play 5e?


I think it's less "I can optimize" as "I can do things besides what I am built for."

There' also flexibility on "what you do best". As an archery specialist, you can use a Longbow as easily as a Shortbow (race and class limits aside), as opposed to getting HUGE bonuses for one weapon, to where you are effectively gimped if you don't have that specific weapon available.


So...you're saying that 5ed is the Daoism of D&D editions? Return to a simpler state, play in the now and be the uncarved...er, dice?

I'm saying, yes play it and see the game now for what it brings. Simplicity, yes you can optimize. And the guys and gals here will help out and give you a great build.

For me, do not focus on what is missing from the other systems, which are great and you can still play them.
Focus on the positives. Easy, can be played with a mat or theater of the mind or both. The spell casting system allows for great flexibility as you pick spells you may need but you're not stuck with them.
Spell casting could be tough for an inexperienced player, but now its a little easier.
An archer isn't stuck with a bow, use that magic sling or darts.
A weapon master isn't gimped by who can be crit or not, a rogue can sneak attack everyone.
The skill system allows for greater versatility as I can pick the skills I want, I can't get them all mind you but my paladin can disarm traps if he wants to.

3.5, 4, and pathfinder are great, but if you play 5E and compare it, you find you miss the old systems. Just embrace the now.
I find the game, IMHumbleO, is much more dangerous. People fail saves all the time. But at the same time most stuff is fixable.
Crits are exciting once again, I think my champion had 5 total. But he was adaptable. A lot more teamwork is needed.

[bid]

However, adding these wrinkles would complicate things unnecessarily for the purpose of highlighting the MAXIMUM DAMAGE argument.
Well, since we're in fantasy land: a fireball does 40 * 8d6 (max 1920).

The MAXIMUM DAMAGE argument is absurd and meaningless when you push it that far.

[ravenkith]

Well, since we're in fantasy land: a fireball does 40 * 8d6 (max 1920).

The MAXIMUM DAMAGE argument is absurd and meaningless when you push it that far.

I'm not sure where you are getting that math from: The maximum number of fireballs a level 20 wizard could cast is actually 13, if he used all of his 3rd level and higher spell slots to cast nothing but fireball.

In addition, the number of dice a fireball does increases as you put extra levels in,, but only by one per level of the spell.

So, in effect:
3*8d6 = 24d6
3*9d6 = 27d6
3*10d6 = 30d6
2*11d6 = 22d6
2*12d6 = 24d6
1*13d6 = 13d6
1*14d6 = 14d6

Or 154d6.

The max damage a 20th level wizard could potentially do by casting nothing but fireball 13 times would be 924 damage. Of course, this damage is split across 13 rounds, giving an average damage amount of about 71 per round.

Note that this assumes only a single target per fireball, and that all saves are failed; both of which are unlikely, but at that point the math gets unreliable and fuzzy, and you get a lot of if/then/else nested loops that overly complicate matters, especially since each additional target in the blast zone then theoretically doubles the maximum amount of damage that a person can do with a fireball. The maximum number of targets affectable by fireball (in two dimensions) is 16, which means that the theoretical max damage for this tactic is actually 14784, assuming 16 targets per fireball, and every target fails their save and does not have resistance nor immunity.

This same calculation is made, at some level, by players at every table, deciding whether to scorching ray or fireball: you look at the tactical situation, and if you see a bunch of guys all clumped together, it's fireball time. Why? Because a) maximum damage and b) fireball is NOT one per customer, that's why.

ON THE USEFULNESS OF MAX DAMAGE
Max damage should be used to measure the potential destructiveness of a particular tactic and then compare that potential destructiveness to another tactic, in a perfect universe where (as I said in my post) all other variables are equal. It is useful only to compare How much damage a particular tactic COULD put out.

Usually used for decision-making in spell selection and application, THERE IS NO REASON why this same tool should not be applied to weapon tactics selection.

While AVERAGE DPR more accurately models reality, it involves more complex calculations, as it attempts to take many variables into account. However, in and of itself, AVERAGE DPR is also a flawed measuring tool, because it cannot take into account every variable (side hint: nothing can). At some point,a s with any kind of statistical analysis, you get to a point of diminishing returns as the amount of effort put in exceeds the value of the information yielded.

For example, in regard to GWM, yes, there is a negative 5 penalty to hit, BUT in my example, I assumed that if you are investing resources in GWM that you would not be inclined to leave that penalty as is. Getting advantage has been said to be the equivalent of a +3 bonus on these boards; I'm not sure of the math behind this particular assignation, but it sounds fair to me. Advantage is relatively easy to get and maintain, so, in effect, much of the penalty has already been offset, and there are other methods (bless, for instance) that will allow you to negate it completely. A FIGHTER, as specified in the example, can easily be expected to get and maintain advantage.

To be sure, this was an assumption that was NOT explicitly stated in the original argument.

While a TWFer COULD also use these same tactics to improve his chances to hit, he does not NEED to and therefore, is LESS LIKELY to spend resources on doing so. He is FAR more likely to have to spend resources TRYING to add to his capacity to deal damage (at least, that's what he SHOULD be doing). Unfortunately it is HARDER to add damage reliably than it is to add advantage. While there are spells that do this, they are almost always concentration - so they don't stack.

Note that, for the purposes of the example, it WAS directly stated that other than their chosen fighting type and emphasis thereon, they were exactly alike, meaning that any benefit one could get, the other could also, thus making such calculations a wash and a waste of time to model.

Note also that we didn't overly discuss the difficulties inherent in comparing the use of a single magical weapon to the use of two: depending on which weapons are being discussed, OBVIOUSLY the math will change, but the complexity of trying to model a comparison for each and every single weapon combination out there is just plain silly to me (more on that note, below).

Personally, if I were GOING to use TWF, it'd be on a barbarian/rogue base with an eye to getting a weapon that instilled paralysis on a failed save (AFAIK, this weapon does not exist yet, but there are hold person spells, so it implies custom creation) and a weapon of wounding.

I'd be using STR-based attacks with finesse weapons. Why? Barbarians not only get advantage on melee attacks, they also get added damage per attack (+2 at first level, scales up to +6, but I wouldn't get quite that far with it), Rogues get sneak attack 1 per round, at a rate of 1d6/3 levels. With weapons that cause paralysis, while raging, your 6d6 sneak would be guaranteed to go off every round, and once paralysis kicks in, you will roll every dice on every attack twice, and take the total. I haven't figured out the exact level breaks yet, but Barb (Totem) 5-8 seems likely, followed by at least 12 rogue (Thief). Once paralysis kicks in, This would yield 2d8 (Rapier) + 5 (STR) + 3 (Rage) + 12d6 (Sneak) +2d4 (wounding) on the first attack each round, then 2d8 (Rapier) + 5 (STR) + 3 (Rage) on each attack thereafter, with an additional 2d4 wounding on every other attack (2 attacks per round, with bonus, off hand weapon is paralysis, main is wounding).

Keep in mind that wounding in this edition is an ongoing condition that stacks, so if they are paralyzed, those d4s add up fast.
RD 1: 4d4
2: 8d4
3: 12d4
4: 16d4 (etc, etc.).

In the meantime, since you took Bear totem, you are now a raging, frothing, whirling dervish of murder, that roams the battlefield slitting opens peoples veins with vicious, yet horribly accurate attacks from your twin blades, all while taking half damage from every type of attack except psychic.

The real advantage that TWF has over 2 handing is that you can mix and match weapon effects with TWF, while you only get one with 2handing. Of course, fully exploring this would mean fully modeling each and every weapon combo in the DMG, plus customs: my response to taking on this task is a definite pass.

[Giant2005]

I'm not sure where you are getting that math from: The maximum number of fireballs a level 20 wizard could cast is actually 13, if he used all of his 3rd level and higher spell slots to cast nothing but fireball.

I'm pretty sure that the 40 was the number of targets hit.

[ravenkith]

I'm pretty sure that the 40 was the number of targets hit.




Ah, well then yes: while highly unlikely that all your enemies will cluster into a ball in three dimensions, that *is* the max damage of a single fireball. But then, that's why someone invented that spell: may damage to max number of targets in minimum time.

Sorry, rarely think in 3 dimensions in D&D.

[Elderand]

It's wrong though. Forgot to account for Empowered Invocation or Elemental affinity. So the real maximum is 5 higher.
And even then there is a better option. Spell Bombardment. Technicly a wild sorcerer could do 1926 damage.

[ravenkith]

It's wrong though. Forgot to account for Empowered Invocation or Elemental affinity. So the real maximum is 5 higher.
And even then there is a better option. Spell Bombardment. Technicly a wild sorcerer could do 1926 damage.

See, and this is where it gets crazy trying to account for EVERYTHING.

When you do that you end up having to do calculations for likelihood of making or failing a save, whether evasion applies, whether resistance or immunity applies and the likelihood of that....oh, not to mention taking into account whether it's sorc, or wizard, or evoker.....blechh.

There's always going to be some sort of unaccounted for variable, which is why it's better to a) compare apples to apples and b) be specific as possible and c)look only at the raw, underlying mechanics.

Look at the simplest set of circumstances and make your comparisons based on that.

[Elderand]

Actually. New total for a fireball, not accounting for 3 dimensions, so just one layer of enemies.

9th level fireball, affecting 51 squares (using the guidelines given in the DMG, pg 251), each squares containing 4 tiny enemies.

Maximum damage per target 90 (14d6 + 1d6 wild sorcerer), as per rules given in the phb damage is rolled once and applied to every enemy. (PHB 204)

Total enemies affected 204. Grand total damage 18 360.

That's about twice the damage a non enhanced fireball whitout spell bombardment does.

Accounting for 3 dimensions the damage should be about 6 times that. Roughly.

So I estimate a fireball can do about 110K damage. In theory.

[Dimcair]

Since we are talking about/bashing GWM, here is a neat table for any GWM to know when the potential benefit outweighs the risk (on average).

The reason I've been looking for this is that even if I play a vengeance paladin, 1/short rest is not enough for me. Having PAM here is also a reason to invest the feat rather than sentinel.

So playing with a brain turned on is definitely something you should do to take the maximum benefit out of GWM.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?373572-GWM-Reference-Table&p=20509151#post20509151

[Giant2005]

So playing with a brain turned on is definitely something you should do to take the maximum benefit out of GWM.

I'm not sure it is even worth the effort.
It is a bad idea to use it against the high AC enemies, and they also tend to be the only enemies that actually require the need for the extra firepower. The things that it is useful against are defeated easily enough that you really don't need it. Even the middle ground enemies that it is useful against tend to only take a marginal amount of extra damage per round on average - not enough to really be worth spending a feat on.
It is just one of those abilities that sound great on paper, but just really aren't that good. The big problem with it is that it even seems really great in game even if it isn't helping so much, simply because those big numbers are pretty impressive, even if they are costing you more than they are getting you.

[ravenkith]

Actually. New total for a fireball, not accounting for 3 dimensions, so just one layer of enemies.

9th level fireball, affecting 51 squares (using the guidelines given in the DMG, pg 251), each squares containing 4 tiny enemies.

Maximum damage per target 90 (14d6 + 1d6 wild sorcerer), as per rules given in the phb damage is rolled once and applied to every enemy. (PHB 204)

Total enemies affected 204. Grand total damage 18 360.

That's about twice the damage a non enhanced fireball without spell bombardment does.

Accounting for 3 dimensions the damage should be about 6 times that. Roughly.

So I estimate a fireball can do about 110K damage. In theory.

MM. Not gonna bother to check your math, just going to say that now you would take that total damage figure and compare it in similar situations (tiny critters filling the blast field) for each and every 9th level spell with a dex save and an area effect in order to figure out which spell is THEORETICALLY more destructive.

It's important to compare apples to apples. You can't compare an AOE direct damage spell to anything that isn't an AOE direct damage spell (and even then, most of the time, it often can only be compared to similar spells at the same or similar levels, by design).

In some cases, this max damage calculation is obvious, and you do it in your head.

Meteor swarm, for example, does 40d6 in a 40ft radius. Just based on the eyeball test, we know immediately that it's max damage is going to be orders of magnitude higher than that of a 9th level fireball - thus, IF you want AOE direct damage (fire) in a 9th level slot, you would DEFINITELY select meteor swarm over fireball for that purpose.

8th level's direct damage AOE, Sunburst, doesn't target dex and doesn't deal fire damage, and, as such, this makes it difficult to compare to Fireball. However, given that it deals a base 12d6 radiant damage, and affects a 60 foot radius, it is clearly the more potentially destructive of the two. This also leaves out the fact that is has a blindness rider associated with it. I would actually argue that given that there is no such thing as evasion for Con saves, you're looking at an extremely powerful spell here.

On the other hand, Max damage eyeball tests show that, strictly speaking, lightning bolt (a third level direct damage AOE with a dex save) is a massively inferior spell to that of fireball because it has a maximum number of targets roughly half that of fireball. This means that (since damage dice numbers are the same), it will have roughly HALF the potential effect of a fireball.

Of course, people still take lightning bolt sometimes, especially if they know they are going to be in a campaign with a lot of tight tunnel fighting, because the likelihood of hitting multiple targets with one spell increases, but on a featureless plain (i.e. removing variables), fireball is the better AOE direct damage spell, period.


I'm not sure it is even worth the effort.
It is a bad idea to use it against the high AC enemies, and they also tend to be the only enemies that actually require the need for the extra firepower. The things that it is useful against are defeated easily enough that you really don't need it. Even the middle ground enemies that it is useful against tend to only take a marginal amount of extra damage per round on average - not enough to really be worth spending a feat on.
It is just one of those abilities that sound great on paper, but just really aren't that good. The big problem with it is that it even seems really great in game even if it isn't helping so much, simply because those big numbers are pretty impressive, even if they are costing you more than they are getting you.

This is just straight out shoddy thinking. You're focused on the fact that there is a problem, instead of focussing on how to solve said problem.

SOME THINGS TO NOTE
1. Having GWM does not mean that you MUST use it on every swing (Although, I would, but that's me). This means that you DON'T have to use it against high AC mobs if you don't want to. However, the supposed cost (-5 to hit) is RIDICULOUSLY easy to offset for those situations when you are dealing with high ac mobs. Advantage, in and of itself, offsets 60% of the loss to hit. Combine with bless or some other accuracy boost, and 2-handing is no longer at a disadvantage at all. Hell, devotion paladin with a +5 Charisma negates the penalty all by itself, and can bless as well, and then get advantage on top of that.

2. Enemies with low ACs can be dispatched more quickly, meaning damage prevention, meaning resource preservation.

3. 10 points of damage on each hit, depending on the weapon used (Polearm = d10, Greatsword = 2d6, Greataxe d12) is much like guaranteeing a crit (double damage) on every single hit you make. The fact that actually getting a crit essentially means access to triple damage is just icing on the cake. The feat EXCELS when getting multiple attacks, and LOVES some polearm mastery in tandem with GWM, as that adds an additional attack AND creates additional opportunity attacks. There is no 'marginal amount of damage' here, especially when compared to other melee weapon wielders.

4. If you really are worried about accuracy issues, simply multiclass or spend a feat to get access to a familiar, then have it aid you on every attack you ever make. (Yes, it's that easy, you probably want an Owl).

[mephnick]

I've convinced myself that Find Familiar is an overpowered cop out spell, that's for sure.

[Segev]

I've convinced myself that Find Familiar is an overpowered cop out spell, that's for sure.

Do elaborate, please.

[Lines]

I've convinced myself that Find Familiar is an overpowered cop out spell, that's for sure.

Indeed, like find steed it should have been a class feature. And find steed should have some actual scaling attached, that warhorse dies instantly at high levels.

[mephnick]

Do elaborate, please.

Mostly a joke since everyone takes it.

But it is basically auto-advantage, melee touch spells, scouting and more built into a free 1st level spell with no time limit. I guess they wanted every spellcaster to have a chain pact. :smallsigh:

[Lines]

Mostly a joke since everyone takes it.

But it is basically auto-advantage, melee touch spells, scouting and more built into a free 1st level spell with no time limit. I guess they wanted every spellcaster to have a chain pact. :smallsigh:

Well, no. The chain pact allows stronger familiars and lets them attack, that's kind of the point. The things you just mentioned are not the problem with find familiar, it used to be fine - it's just in 5e there's pretty much no cost if it dies, it used to cost 100gp to summon and you'd lose 200xp per wizard/sorcerer level if you failed a fort save or 100xp per if you passed, plus a slain or dismissed familiar could not be replaced for a year and a day (though they could be resurrected). Not saying it needed such costs in 5e, but there should be a greater penalty if it dies.

[mephnick]

Yeah, I meant the main problem is that it's basically free. There's no penalty and it's a ritual spell. There's literally no reason not to take it if you can.

Sure the Chain Pact familiars are better, but are they worth an entire pact when you could just be a Tomelock and take Find Familiar?

[Lines]

Yeah, I meant the main problem is that it's basically free. There's no penalty and it's a ritual spell. There's literally no reason not to take it if you can.

Sure the Chain Pact familiars are better, but are they worth an entire pact when you could just be a Tomelock and take Find Familiar?

Not really, no. I still dislike find steed more, how hard would including a clause of adding half your HP to your mounts or adding 1/2 CR per higher slot up to 5 have been?

[Dimcair]

SOME THINGS TO NOTE
1. Hell, devotion paladin with a +5 Charisma negates the penalty all by itself, and can bless as well, and then get advantage on top of that.

2. Enemies with low ACs can be dispatched more quickly, meaning damage prevention, meaning resource preservation.

3. The feat EXCELS when getting multiple attacks, and LOVES some polearm mastery in tandem with GWM, as that adds an additional attack AND creates additional opportunity attacks. There is no 'marginal amount of damage' here, especially when compared to other melee weapon wielders.



1. Ah IC another reason now why you ranked devotion a tad higher than vengeance in the end. Once you have advantage you can't get anything on top of that, while devotion has its +Cha AND can possibly get advantage on top of that. Do you think playing a GWM-PAM vengeance Pala vs. a GWM-PAM devotion pala is a matter of whether you are up against a lot of sole, strong enemies, or more groups? (Talking mid levels here 1-14) Maybe I should change my mind about vengeance after all.

2. Exactly, what you imply but some may not read out of that is that with the Cleave option of GWM you can add some extra damage on top of that. Better if you don't have PAM but still 1d10>1d4. (Especially if you reroll 1s and 2s

3. I need to look up whether you can use GWM on a opportunity attack. Can you?

[ravenkith]

1. Ah IC another reason now why you ranked devotion a tad higher than vengeance in the end. Once you have advantage you can't get anything on top of that, while devotion has its +Cha AND can possibly get advantage on top of that. Do you think playing a GWM-PAM vengeance Pala vs. a GWM-PAM devotion pala is a matter of whether you are up against a lot of sole, strong enemies, or more groups? (Talking mid levels here 1-14) Maybe I should change my mind about vengeance after all.


Having seen the devotion PAM/GWM build in play, it can work against either a sole monster OR a group of low level mobs, depending on character level. It's admittedly better at dealing with multiple monsters after it qualifies for extra attack, especially if those monsters have low hp. Of course, the more attacks you can dish out with +10 damage the better.



2. Exactly, what you imply but some may not read out of that is that with the Cleave option of GWM you can add some extra damage on top of that. Better if you don't have PAM but still 1d10>1d4. (Especially if you reroll 1s and 2s


Again, the more attacks you have, the better that GWM works for you.

With just GWM, you get a bonus attack if you score a critical or kill an enemy with your strike on your turn.
With PAM, now you get an AOO any time someone enters your threatened area or if they leave your threatened area (reach 10ft). In addition, you can make a bonus attack on your turn with a base d4 damage.

Assume a properly built Vhuman Paladin of devotion of 6th level.

Combat begins.
Assuming you don't go first, your enemy comes to you, triggering an opportunity attack as a reaction. He finishes his turn.
You take your turn:
You attack with your main weapon. If a critical, or enemy killed, you get an attack with your main weapon as a bonus action. If not, you move on to your second attack.
You make a second attack with your main weapon. If a critical, or enemy killed, you get an attack with your main weapon as a bonus action. If not, you activate the bonus attack action from PAM.

In this way you guarantee making a minimum of three attacks every round with a paladin. Most of the time it will be two mains and a PAM attack, but all of them will use GWM for extra damage.

You can decide whether to run bless, divine favor and smite as you wish. In addition to which, you also get your Oath channel divinity benefit.

As other enemies approach, or flee (as long as they don't disengage, of course), they will trigger additional reaction attacks as well.

Keep in mind that Devotion's channel costs an action, whereas Vengeance's triggers as a bonus action, apparently, for what it's worth note that neither oath requires concentration.

I personally prefer Devotion, but YMMV.



3. I need to look up whether you can use GWM on a opportunity attack. Can you?
[/QUOTE]

While the part of GWM that refers to making a bonus attack if you get a critical or a kill says that it costs a bonus action, the part that talks about the -5/+10 only specifies that you must decide to use the feat before the attack roll is made, and declare that fact.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think you may be mistaken. Horribly, horribly mistaken. On both counts.

In 5E, as in any edition of this game we play, there are optimal choices to be made.

Simply put: Some combinations of races, backgrounds, class features and spell/ability/feat selections are always going to be more powerful or versatile than others, and thus, people will be inclined to choose those combinations, once identified, over others.

Some class and race combinations are completely out shined by other builds, and thus will rarely be played.

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

I can't agree with your assessment on purely mathematical grounds:

Beastmaster outright does more damage than the Hunter;
Champion has better DPR than the Battlemaster (the battlemaster has some more flexibility on attack riders and better burst, but once the number of combat rounds exceeds a certain amount, the Champion is just running up the score after that point, so to speak);
And of those Monk ways, only the Four Elements provides AoE abilities, the damage of which far exceeds the damage per ki potential of the other two paths. Simply put, Four Elements provides the most bang for your buck of any path.


Champion wise, it in no way compares. You get no active abilities, which means you have no ability to choose based on the situation - a battlemaster can activate an ability when most necessary, a champion is stuck hoping he rolls high, and the slightly increased damage from crits in no way cancels out the roughly equal damage from battlemaster, not to mention the utility it gets. Sure, the battlemaster's scaling is appalling because WotC really seems to hate fun at times, but when it gets poor the eldritch knight gets good. Go early you want a battlemaster, go late you want an eldritch knight, never is a champion a either fun or good.

Those passive abilities provide more benefit on average. So, yes, the Battlemaster gets to choose situational uses of their abilities, but overall it's going to be an inferior damage dealer. That's the tradeoff, you lose damage potential in return for flexibility in a variety of niche situations.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Battlemaster most of all, but it's simply inferior to the Champion as a damage dealer.


1. Spells are still king.

Any time you have the option to add spells to something, you should really take the time to evaluate it before passing.

While fighter's battlemaster and eldritch knight can lead to some debate, there is no doubt that having access to spells is 9/10 superior to not having them, long term.

Full spellcaster classes still enjoy massive benefits over non-casters in terms of flexibility and self improvement, although admittedly, the difference is not QUITE as much as in prior editions.

9th level spells destroy the game (as always).

Eh, not so much.

Spells are poor action economy (casting one takes a whole action), whereas Melee attacks are good action economy (multiple attacks per action);
Spells are inflexible (they do only what they say), Melee attacks are infinitely flexible (any melee attack can be substituted into some kind of an activity;
Spells are limited: X slots per day, then done. Melee is unlimited, no matter how many rounds are fought, melee attacks carry on.

Spells can be good, but generally they're not until you hit the optimal number of targets/situation.


Nobody said it was. If you close your eyes and squint, expect unrealistic amounts of encounters and ignore the part where they can't choose to activate it, champions technically outdamage battlemasters, that's not why they're crap.

I only expect the norm that the published modules encounter and the DMG recommends. Based on those recommendations, the Champion's output exceeds the Battlemasters when combats average approximately 7+ rounds.

So Champions excel in tests of endurance, whereas the Battlemaster (and other bursty class options) favor the short fights.


No, it's mechanically weak because all it's doing is replacing your second attack with another attack, it's basically a sidegrade and one that depends on a creature with half the HP a wizard has that has to be on the frontlines to do damage.

What's being glossed over here is that the companion hits more often than the regular attack would, it deals more damage than the regular attack would, and it gets to use a reaction, so it's effectively free attacks if the opponent tries to get away from it.

So, yeah, it's just a better attack that can be positioned where the Ranger doesn't want to be and allows the Ranger to, in a sense, make 2 opportunity attacks per round one of which doesn't need to be anywhere near the Ranger themselves.

[JellyPooga]

Spells are poor action economy (casting one takes a whole action)
Wait...what?

whereas Melee attacks are good action economy (multiple attacks per action);
Spells are inflexible (they do only what they say), Melee attacks are infinitely flexible (any melee attack can be substituted into some kind of an activity

OK, let's ignore the fact that only certain classes actually get multiple attacks per Action and move right on to how (and I'm sorry about how blunt this will sound) incredibly wrong you are.

Let's take Grappling as one of your "infinite" alternatives to dealing around 13-20 damage as a single attack. A (normal) character can grapple, at most, two opponents. With Extra Attack you can do this in one round. A 7th level Wizard can cast Evard's Black Tentacles can (effectively) grapple as many dudes as he can fit in a 20ft square and deal 3d6 damage per turn.

Scorching Ray targets three enemies at once. At 3rd level.

Eldritch Blast targets up to four; comparable to a Fighter. It also deals damage of a type resisted by very few indeed.

Who has the better action economy again?

If you want to talk about "infinite" flexibility, melee types are limited to Damage (B/P/S only), Shove, Trip and Grapple. Spellcasters are limited to Charm, Grapple, Incapacitate, Kill, Damage (of the type of your choice), Poison, Frighten, Blind, Deafen, Paralyze, Petrify and so on and so on and...

You're right that spellcasters are limited by use per day, but their flexibility is undeniably far greater than any melee or ranged non-spellcasting combatant.

[Lines]

Infinite flexibility wise, you're running into the problem of the discrete toolkit here. If you're improvising an action, the DM tends to balance it in terms of the current context - you can have the massage you're giving the giant actually make him tense up and have back pain for the rest of the day, but you can't make his spine explode. While if the action you're performing is a discrete one, something with a previously defined cost and effect, if you find a way to make the giant's spine explode, it does. No DM saying that it wouldn't be appropriate, it averts the problem with 'mother may I?' which is that outside of certain bounds, you may not.

[Mara]

Problems with 5e:
Sage advice

Skills and ability checks.

Skill contest are good, improvised actions are good, skills need more fleshing out so that you know what you can actually do. They don't need to be random. X bonus on contest could just mean you can do things like how a caster can just cast a spell.

Rulings vs rules is too much on the ruling side, when I DM it just feels like I'm home brewing most of the game.

[Elderand]

A 7th level Wizard can cast Evard's Black Tentacles can (effectively) grapple as many dudes as he can fit in a 20ft square

If I read the spell correctly and it fill an area with a 20 ft² size (rather than a square that's 20 ft on each side) that means a wizard can affect two 5' by 5' squares. He can't do more than two whitout falling under the 50% surface affected as per dmg rules.

Anyway that means a wizard can affect a maximum of 8 tiny creatures.

[mgshamster]

If I read the spell correctly and it fill an area with a 20 ft² size (rather than a square that's 20 ft on each side) that means a wizard can affect two 5' by 5' squares. He can't do more than two whitout falling under the 50% surface affected as per dmg rules.

Anyway that means a wizard can affect a maximum of 8 tiny creatures.

Considering that the book specifically says that a cube area is defined by the length of the sides (so a 30-foot cube is 30' to a side), I see no reason to assume that the language suddenly changes when talking about a square. PHB 204.

Notice that the spell does not say 20 square feet, but rather a 20-foot square. This should mean, assuming that they use the same language for squares as they do for every other area of effect description in the game, that it is a square with 20' to a side.

[djreynolds]

Problems with 5e:
Sage advice

Skills and ability checks.

Skill contest are good, improvised actions are good, skills need more fleshing out so that you know what you can actually do. They don't need to be random. X bonus on contest could just mean you can do things like how a caster can just cast a spell.

Rulings vs rules is too much on the ruling side, when I DM it just feels like I'm home brewing most of the game.

We homebrew a lot, we all just agree on it, or its left as is. You have a skill in perception and if you can convince people that in this particular case your charisma should be factored into the equation because you say "Hey those are same things I do when I'm in disguise and playing spy and this allows me some more insight into his character or I'm able to perceive subtle things he does because I'm so good at deceiving people as well." Best cop is a criminal, right. As long as it doesn't gimp the game or overpower it, go for it.

[Elderand]

Considering that the book specifically says that a cube area is defined by the length of the sides (so a 30-foot cube is 30' to a side), I see no reason to assume that the language suddenly changes when talking about a square. PHB 204.

Notice that the spell does not say 20 square feet, but rather a 20-foot square. This should mean, assuming that they use the same language for squares as they do for every other area of effect description in the game, that it is a square with 20' to a side.

If that's the case then it can affect twenty 5' by 5' squares, which represent a maximum of 80 tiny creatures.
If my earlier post is the correct way of reading it my math was slightly off in that it can only affect one 5' by 5' square and so 4 tiny creature.

[Lines]

If that's the case then it can affect twenty 5' by 5' squares, which represent a maximum of 80 tiny creatures.
If my earlier post is the correct way of reading it my math was slightly off in that it can only affect one 5' by 5' square and so 4 tiny creature.

Surely a square 20 feet on all sides contains 16 5x5' squares? And your earlier post was definitely not the correct way of reading it, there is no need for them to have said it like that instead of affecting one 5' square if that's what they wanted.

[mgshamster]

Surely a square 20 feet on all sides contains 16 5x5' squares? And your earlier post was definitely not the correct way of reading it, there is no need for them to have said it like that instead of affecting one 5' square if that's what they wanted.

He's accidentally double counting the corner squares.

[Elderand]

He's accidentally double counting the corner squares.

No, I'm not

You don't need to cover a whole square for it to be affecting. You only need to cover 50% of it's area, that mean you can shuffle in 4 more squares. 21 squares total actually if you place it just right. (corner of the are in the middle of a creature square)

[mgshamster]

No, I'm not

You don't need to cover a whole square for it to be affecting. You only need to cover 50% of it's area, that mean you can shuffle in 4 more squares. 21 squares total actually if you place it just right. (corner of the are in the middle of a creature square)

I can't seem to find the rule that says that. Citation?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it. Page 251 of the DMG:

"The area of effect of a spell, monster ability, or other feature must be translated onto squares or hexes to determine which potential targets are in the area and which aren't.

Choose an intersection of squares or hexes as the point of origin of an area of effect, then follow its rules as normal. If an area of effect is circular and covers at least half a square, it affects that square."

Since we're talking about a square and not a circle, your analysis is incorrect.

[PoeticDwarf]

I think you may be mistaken. Horribly, horribly mistaken. On both counts.

In 5E, as in any edition of this game we play, there are optimal choices to be made.

Simply put: Some combinations of races, backgrounds, class features and spell/ability/feat selections are always going to be more powerful or versatile than others, and thus, people will be inclined to choose those combinations, once identified, over others.

Some class and race combinations are completely out shined by other builds, and thus will rarely be played.

For instance, just talking about the mechanics of the archetypes in and of themselves, all other things being equal and flavor being left out:
Open Hand Monk>Shadow Monk>Elemental Monk
Weapon Ranger>Beast Ranger
Battlemaster>Champion
Arcane Trickster>Thief>Assassin
Devotion>Vengeance>Nature

When it comes to feats, comparing each one against the others, mechanically, there are some that are clear winners, some that are clear losers, and some that can be made to work better than they should.
Some examples -
Winners: Magic Initiate, Alert, Lucky
Losers: Weapon Master, Grappler, Martial Adept, Durable
Workable: Great Weapon Master, Athlete, Inspiring Leader

Then, of course there are melee fighting types: while either of "Sword and Board" and "Two handing" can be useful in this edition, dual wielding gets RAPIDLY outclassed (Archery falls into a completely separate category, and must instead actually be compared to ranged cantrips).

TL;DR: "You think all things in 5e are created equal and optimization is dead? MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.....Oh, you're serious. That makes this even funnier,"
Wow, this makes no sense, I don't say 5e is the best edition and not everything is optimized but there aren't clear Feat losers and way more importantly I see subclasses way different. Assassin far above thief, Ancients as best pally, Shadow over Open Hand. Just because there are no clear winners...

[ravenkith]

Wow, this makes no sense, I don't say 5e is the best edition and not everything is optimized but there aren't clear Feat losers and way more importantly I see subclasses way different. Assassin far above thief, Ancients as best pally, Shadow over Open Hand. Just because there are no clear winners...

Read the whole thread before you comment.

[KorvinStarmast]

Read the whole thread before you comment.
You left out Polearm Mastery on 'Winner' feats. :-)

As to the whole "convince yourself" bit I don't need to.

Our group plays.
We have fun.
Our DM finds it pretty easy to run.
the players can get as deep into it, or not, as they like.
We resolve "huh?" items at the table, or in emails/phone conversations away from the table.

We've changed DM's. Our current DM had us each roll, 46d drop 1, and he gave us these guidelines.
If no attribute is 16 or higher, roll all six dice again.
If all stat bonuses added up (before racial attributes) are not between 5 and 10, roll all six again.
If all stat bonuses added up are more than 10 (before racial) then subtract as needed to get to 10. Make sure one stat is 16 or higher.
Pick race (he had a few deletions), pick class, (he had some guidancee there too on some reskinning he did) etcetera. Start at level 3.

We are off and running on a new adventure. Shipwrecked already on a distant shore. The previous DM now gets to play, and I'm halfway through writing my back story. The short versions we already shared.

What's not to like? Fun game.

[Vogonjeltz]

OK, let's ignore the fact that only certain classes actually get multiple attacks per Action and move right on to how (and I'm sorry about how blunt this will sound) incredibly wrong you are.

Yeah, if we completely discount the thing that provides superior action economy, then it's totally not bad action economy to cast a spell!

Next maybe we can stand agape at the supreme might of squirrels when we discount all other animals in the universe?


Let's take Grappling as one of your "infinite" alternatives to dealing around 13-20 damage as a single attack. A (normal) character can grapple, at most, two opponents. With Extra Attack you can do this in one round. A 7th level Wizard can cast Evard's Black Tentacles can (effectively) grapple as many dudes as he can fit in a 20ft square and deal 3d6 damage per turn.

True, the 7th level Wizard could, once per long rest, attempt to grapple 1 or more creatures within a 20 foot square (so...up to 4?) for up to 10 rounds maximum costing the concentration slot, provided they aren't disrupted and the creatures don't make the saving throw. Oh and it's indescriminate friendly fire as well, so it may or may not even be possible to safely cast it.

But then they're done, and it cost them their most valuable casting slot and it only let them do it for one fight out of the day. Meanwhile the Fighter can grapple round in and round out, their concentration can't be broken, and it costs them no major resource that requires a long or short rest to recharge.


Scorching Ray targets three enemies at once. At 3rd level.

And also costs a 2nd level spell slot of which you only get 2 per day. It averages only 7 damage per hit, which means the regular attacks would overtake it in just 2 rounds. A fighter with Action surge would easily outdamage it in the same round for a cheaper expenditure (returns on a mere short rest).


Eldritch Blast targets up to four; comparable to a Fighter. It also deals damage of a type resisted by very few indeed.

And it can't be used for anything but damage. Melee attacks are flexible, they can be substituted for other things. Eldritch Blast is inflexible, and worse it's a ranged attack so it gets disadvantage in melee or against prone targets.


Who has the better action economy again?

The fighter, no spell listed provided better action economy for the same cost, only potentially better (in the short term) for vastly increased cost. From a pure utilitarian perspective, that's inferior.


If you want to talk about "infinite" flexibility, melee types are limited to Damage (B/P/S only), Shove, Trip and Grapple. Spellcasters are limited to Charm, Grapple, Incapacitate, Kill, Damage (of the type of your choice), Poison, Frighten, Blind, Deafen, Paralyze, Petrify and so on and so on and...

You're right that spellcasters are limited by use per day, but their flexibility is undeniably far greater than any melee or ranged non-spellcasting combatant.

Why do you think a melee could only shove, trip, or grapple? They can do essentially anything through melee attack substitution, it says so in the PHB. Describe a combat-esque thing, and it subs in. Damage types can also be added on through poison or found magical weaponry, not that it matters as resistance is almost always overcome by a magic weapon, which, based on the loot generation tables, is a near certainty at being found. (And in most modules there are magic weapons within the first day or two of adventuring).

Spellcasters, on the other hand, are limited to whatever spells they have on their lists and know/memorize. That's substantially more limiting than imagination.


Infinite flexibility wise, you're running into the problem of the discrete toolkit here. If you're improvising an action, the DM tends to balance it in terms of the current context - you can have the massage you're giving the giant actually make him tense up and have back pain for the rest of the day, but you can't make his spine explode. While if the action you're performing is a discrete one, something with a previously defined cost and effect, if you find a way to make the giant's spine explode, it does. No DM saying that it wouldn't be appropriate, it averts the problem with 'mother may I?' which is that outside of certain bounds, you may not.

Oh no need to worry, I wasn't including magical thinking as part of the infinite variety of potential action substitutions.


We homebrew a lot, we all just agree on it, or its left as is. You have a skill in perception and if you can convince people that in this particular case your charisma should be factored into the equation because you say "Hey those are same things I do when I'm in disguise and playing spy and this allows me some more insight into his character or I'm able to perceive subtle things he does because I'm so good at deceiving people as well." Best cop is a criminal, right. As long as it doesn't gimp the game or overpower it, go for it.

I might do a Charisma (Perception) check for noticing when something doesn't add up in a social interaction. i.e. You're applying your innate aptitude for knowing what the right thing to do in a situation is as opposed to your pure intuition that something is off, which would be the Wisdom check.

Of course, allowing that would probably be reliant on the particular player actually making the argument for that check, rather than me just offering it.

[Lines]

True, the 7th level Wizard could, once per long rest, attempt to grapple 1 or more creatures within a 20 foot square (so...up to 4?) for up to 10 rounds maximum costing the concentration slot, provided they aren't disrupted and the creatures don't make the saving throw. Oh and it's indescriminate friendly fire as well, so it may or may not even be possible to safely cast it.

But then they're done, and it cost them their most valuable casting slot and it only let them do it for one fight out of the day. Meanwhile the Fighter can grapple round in and round out, their concentration can't be broken, and it costs them no major resource that requires a long or short rest to recharge.
And? Efficiency and power are different things, what the wizard did has far better action economy than what the fighter did.


And also costs a 2nd level spell slot of which you only get 2 per day. It averages only 7 damage per hit, which means the regular attacks would overtake it in just 2 rounds. A fighter with Action surge would easily outdamage it in the same round for a cheaper expenditure (returns on a mere short rest).
Not sure why he went there. Wizards have never been about blasting for direct damage, it's marginally more efficient in 5e but it's still not a great idea barring aoe (a fighter will take the whole fight to catch up on the damage a fireball hitting several foes will inflict)


And it can't be used for anything but damage. Melee attacks are flexible, they can be substituted for other things. Eldritch Blast is inflexible, and worse it's a ranged attack so it gets disadvantage in melee or against prone targets.
How is it being a ranged attack worse? It means it can be done from a distance, which has huge advantages in flexibility. Eldritch blast does great damage at long range with a free 10ft push every hit, that's amazing compared to melee - the flexibility means nothing if none of what you can do outvalues damage.


The fighter, no spell listed provided better action economy for the same cost, only potentially better (in the short term) for vastly increased cost. From a pure utilitarian perspective, that's inferior.
You guys were discussing action economy. Black tentacles is far more efficient than autoattacking is.


Why do you think a melee could only shove, trip, or grapple? They can do essentially anything through melee attack substitution, it says so in the PHB. Describe a combat-esque thing, and it subs in. Damage types can also be added on through poison or found magical weaponry, not that it matters as resistance is almost always overcome by a magic weapon, which, based on the loot generation tables, is a near certainty at being found. (And in most modules there are magic weapons within the first day or two of adventuring).
You do realise that doesn't actually equal useful, right? If you have infinite crap options you still just have crap options. Spellcasting is nowhere near as limited, since a substantial range of varied and useful mechanical effects beats out a pseudo infinite range of useless possibilities - the nondiscrete action toolkit is by its nature very context dependent, and in most contexts there's nothing it can do that is more useful than attacking, pushing, tripping or grappling.


Spellcasters, on the other hand, are limited to whatever spells they have on their lists and know/memorize. That's substantially more limiting than imagination.
It really isn't. 15 useful options is better than 5 mediocre ones and infinite useless ones.


Oh no need to worry, I wasn't including magical thinking as part of the infinite variety of potential action substitutions.
Not sure where you're going with this. But let's try an example - your party is being charged by several ogres. You're on a firm gravel path being overlooked by a hill that they're charging down, the hill is covered with grass and sparsely populated by medium size trees. Name an action that's going to be more useful than something from your set of discrete abilities, and then notice how those discrete abilities will be less efficient than whatever the wizard does. We'll assume level 11, since the fighter gets a nice boost at that level.

[Vogonjeltz]

And? Efficiency and power are different things, what the wizard did has far better action economy than what the fighter did.

The wizard expended an expensive limited resource, the fighter expended nothing more than the action. That is economical.


Not sure why he went there. Wizards have never been about blasting for direct damage, it's marginally more efficient in 5e but it's still not a great idea barring aoe (a fighter will take the whole fight to catch up on the damage a fireball hitting several foes will inflict)

How is it being a ranged attack worse? It means it can be done from a distance, which has huge advantages in flexibility. Eldritch blast does great damage at long range with a free 10ft push every hit, that's amazing compared to melee - the flexibility means nothing if none of what you can do outvalues damage.

Ranged attacks get disadvantage in melee is why.


You guys were discussing action economy. Black tentacles is far more efficient than autoattacking is.

The resource expenditure is higher in black tentacles.


You do realise that doesn't actually equal useful, right? If you have infinite crap options you still just have crap options. Spellcasting is nowhere near as limited, since a substantial range of varied and useful mechanical effects beats out a pseudo infinite range of useless possibilities - the nondiscrete action toolkit is by its nature very context dependent, and in most contexts there's nothing it can do that is more useful than attacking, pushing, tripping or grappling.

Do you realize that if there are a theoretical infinite number of options than there are also an infinite number of good options? Limited options are just that, limited, and almost all of them are only any good in a specific scenario, otherwise they are subpar.


It really isn't. 15 useful options is better than 5 mediocre ones and infinite useless ones.

Not sure where you're going with this. But let's try an example - your party is being charged by several ogres. You're on a firm gravel path being overlooked by a hill that they're charging down, the hill is covered with grass and sparsely populated by medium size trees. Name an action that's going to be more useful than something from your set of discrete abilities, and then notice how those discrete abilities will be less efficient than whatever the wizard does. We'll assume level 11, since the fighter gets a nice boost at that level.

you have no apparent reason to think any of the options would be anything but good.

Magical thinking would be when a player tries to do something absurd like tear a tree from the ground when their strength score wouldn't even make them capable of lifting or dragging it.

What might be useful is largely dependent on the context, what equipment the characters have, what (if any) prep work has been done.

Perhaps the Fighter would run through sundering weapons, or hamstringing the ogres, or pushing them into each other. They might clothesline the ogres, or spread a rope between two horses and ride past, tripping them all, or maybe just shoot them full of holes.

In the end it really doesn't matter what I might try, anything the Wizard would try can only be done as many times as they have spell slots. It's their inherent failing.

[djreynolds]

I bring up this topic, convince yourself, because I like the new system just like I liked the old ones.

5E feels like a good cover of an old favorite, "like hey I know that song!"

Now comparing fighters to wizards is like........ comparing farts to burps, I mean both are really funny.

But you know what?

You need them both, arrows can't kill everything, and its tough to cast when you are getting hammered on. 8d8 sounds powerful, but when you roll all 3 and 4's, it sucks.

And realistically a fighter in the AL with standard array is tough to beat, 7 feats, max strength by 6th level and pole arm master and sentinel by 12th. Not too shabby.

And also any monk is good, because the class itself is powerful, the archetype is just icing. They all have FOB and stunning fist and unarmed defense. I barely have enough time to remember that I can shadow teleport, because I'm too busy punching and kicking people.

Rogue is just fine. Sneak attack is awesome, no one is immune and really all I have to do is max out dexterity. Easy.

I like the skill system. It shows my character growing, the fighter may have a 14 in intelligence and passes the earlier arcana checks, but later because he hasn't put points into intelligence and can't compete with the wizard or bard.

But a lot of players come from 3.5, and 5 may not allow the character growth you were wanting. But I like this system, to me it feels more dangerous because die rolls are really important and failure happens more often in my experience.

[Lines]

I bring up this topic, convince yourself, because I like the new system just like I liked the old ones.

5E feels like a good cover of an old favorite, "like hey I know that song!"

Now comparing fighters to wizards is like........ comparing farts to burps, I mean both are really funny.

But you know what?

You need them both, arrows can't kill everything, and its tough to cast when you are getting hammered on. 8d8 sounds powerful, but when you roll all 3 and 4's, it sucks.

And realistically a fighter in the AL with standard array is tough to beat, 7 feats, max strength by 6th level and pole arm master and sentinel by 12th. Not too shabby.

And also any monk is good, because the class itself is powerful, the archetype is just icing. They all have FOB and stunning fist and unarmed defense. I barely have enough time to remember that I can shadow teleport, because I'm too busy punching and kicking people.

Rogue is just fine. Sneak attack is awesome, no one is immune and really all I have to do is max out dexterity. Easy.

I like the skill system. It shows my character growing, the fighter may have a 14 in intelligence and passes the earlier arcana checks, but later because he hasn't put points into intelligence and can't compete with the wizard or bard.

But a lot of players come from 3.5, and 5 may not allow the character growth you were wanting. But I like this system, to me it feels more dangerous because die rolls are really important and failure happens more often in my experience.

Not really. You can have entirely functional full caster parties, you just can't have functional full martial parties unless the DM bends the world to cater to them.

[djreynolds]

Not really. You can have entirely functional full caster parties, you just can't have functional full martial parties unless the DM bends the world to cater to them.

Maybe, but lower levels will be tough for full casters. I'm thinking wizards. Party of 5 wizards. Surviving will be tough.
And higher levels we fought a beholder, and he wrecked us. The martial saved the day there.

We just started Ravenloft, armored skeletons were hitting for 5 points of damage and had ACs of 18. My cleric, AC 18, almost died at 1st level with just 2 hits. Hill Dwarf Cleric with 12 hit points down to 2 with just two whacks.

A wizard would've died in this encounter at 1st level without muscle. But that's the game, casters start off slow and get more powerful.

But for me, you always need both. A rogue saves that wizard from having to cast spells to get to stuff. A fighter saves that wizard from not having to spam the shield spell, because he's not getting hit.

We lost our rogue already actually, failed his con save. Rolled a 3. Specter sucked his soul, crit.

But that's what I like about the game, it feels more dangerous. My cleric has 2 spells right now and they are used up. Just staying alive is a challenge.

[Dimcair]

thats how i thought in 3.5 too. you need peasants who hit things with sticks for you, so you can focus on the important things. problem was the people with the sticks were not happy hitting things with sticks anymore and blamed the wadwadwizzie for the choice they made. #castermasterrace wink

this is how we ended up at 5th edition where the stick people took things away from the wadwadwizzie and they themselves still do the same. hitting things with sticks

[JellyPooga]

The wizard expended an expensive limited resource, the fighter expended nothing more than the action. That is economical.

The resource expenditure is higher in black tentacles.

Action Economy and Resource Economy are two different things. You're talking about Resource Economy. No-one is arguing that Wizards have poorer Resource Economy; it's rather a core concept to most Spellcasters that their resources are limited.

The Action Economy is based on the notion that on a given round, you only get one Action. Some classes can do more with that one action, others can break this rule and get more than one action or bonus actions. So, a lvl.5 Fighter with Extra Attack has pretty good Action Economy; he's not only got Extra Attack allowing him to make two attacks per Action, but he's got Action Surge to let him do it twice in one round.

So the question is; what can he do with those 4 Attacks? Your claim that there is "infinite" possibility is very dependent on the circumstances. You can't throw mud in someones face with one of those attacks unless it's muddy out, for instance. Which means, in general, you're left with only a certain number of things you can do with an attack at any given time; namely swing/shoot for damage, trip, grapple or push. i.e. the things laid out by the rules (there are other options in the DMG).

The next question is; what can a Wizard do in that one round? He can't make 4 Attacks, but he could cast Fireball and hit up to however many people he can fit in a 20ft radius. This is likely more than 4. If it is, the Wizard has demonstrated better Action Economy than the Fighter who chose to swing for damage 4 times against separate foes. If the Fighter used all 4 attacks against one foe, then casting a Fireball to target that one foe would be worse action economy as it will probably deal less damage (ignoring the possibility of damage resistance/vulnerability).

Now consider that the options a Wizard or other spellcaster has include virtually every status effect in the book as well as practically every damage type without being dependent on his surroundings or situation, it's pretty clear which has A)the better Action Economy and B)more variety. The fact that spellcasters operate on a poor Resource Economy compared to Fighters has nothing to do with your original statement;

Spells are poor action economy (casting one takes a whole action) whereas Melee attacks are good action economy (multiple attacks per action);
Spells are inflexible (they do only what they say), Melee attacks are infinitely flexible (any melee attack can be substituted into some kind of an activity
Spells have, as a rule, got better action economy than melee attacks because they have poor resource economy and melee attacks, as a rule, have less flexibility than spells (that's "spells", plural, taken as a whole, not on an individual basis) because they have good resource economy.

[KorvinStarmast]

And realistically a fighter in the AL with standard array is tough to beat, 7 feats, max strength by 6th level and pole arm master and sentinel by 12th. Not too shabby.


How did you arrive at maxed strength and 7 feats? Is this v human? I am probably forgetting something.


ASI or Feat at 4th 6th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 19th.
That's 7 total.

Each ASI costs a feat.
Standard Array has a max stat of 15 in AL.
To get to 20 STR, it seems that you need two ASI's, leaving you 5 feats. With 1 feat for a vhuman, you are still short 1 feat.

What am I forgetting? (If two of the feats have to be chosen that each bump str +1 ... to get 20 STR by 6th you give up better feats like Alert or PAM until later).

[Elderand]

The next question is; what can a Wizard do in that one round? He can't make 4 Attacks, but he could cast Fireball and hit up to however many people he can fit in a 20ft radius. This is likely more than 4.

208 creatures to be precise. Assuming a simple flat surface affected and not a full sphere.

[Vogonjeltz]

Not really. You can have entirely functional full caster parties, you just can't have functional full martial parties unless the DM bends the world to cater to them.

If by "fully functional" you mean that the full caster parties are prone to being TPK'd and 'getting' to roll death saving throws, whereas the 'full martial' (whatever that means) parties aren't, sure.


Maybe, but lower levels will be tough for full casters. I'm thinking wizards. Party of 5 wizards. Surviving will be tough.
And higher levels we fought a beholder, and he wrecked us. The martial saved the day there.

Any of the pre-published adventurers would completely destroy a party of 4-5 Wizards within the first adventure day.

Try Hoard of the Dragon Queen with just Wizards, they are dead on arrival.


Action Economy and Resource Economy are two different things. You're talking about Resource Economy. No-one is arguing that Wizards have poorer Resource Economy; it's rather a core concept to most Spellcasters that their resources are limited.

The Action Economy is based on the notion that on a given round, you only get one Action. Some classes can do more with that one action, others can break this rule and get more than one action or bonus actions. So, a lvl.5 Fighter with Extra Attack has pretty good Action Economy; he's not only got Extra Attack allowing him to make two attacks per Action, but he's got Action Surge to let him do it twice in one round.

So the question is; what can he do with those 4 Attacks? Your claim that there is "infinite" possibility is very dependent on the circumstances. You can't throw mud in someones face with one of those attacks unless it's muddy out, for instance. Which means, in general, you're left with only a certain number of things you can do with an attack at any given time; namely swing/shoot for damage, trip, grapple or push. i.e. the things laid out by the rules (there are other options in the DMG).

The next question is; what can a Wizard do in that one round? He can't make 4 Attacks, but he could cast Fireball and hit up to however many people he can fit in a 20ft radius. This is likely more than 4. If it is, the Wizard has demonstrated better Action Economy than the Fighter who chose to swing for damage 4 times against separate foes. If the Fighter used all 4 attacks against one foe, then casting a Fireball to target that one foe would be worse action economy as it will probably deal less damage (ignoring the possibility of damage resistance/vulnerability).

Now consider that the options a Wizard or other spellcaster has include virtually every status effect in the book as well as practically every damage type without being dependent on his surroundings or situation, it's pretty clear which has A)the better Action Economy and B)more variety. The fact that spellcasters operate on a poor Resource Economy compared to Fighters has nothing to do with your original statement;

I'm taking the whole day view. The Wizard might have, within a tiny span of time (however many rounds it would take to expend their spells) better action economy, but once expended the Fighter's action economy overtakes them.

So, taking into account the whole day, as opposed to one brief snippet, we see that the Fighter has overall better action economy. You're looking at one snapshot, whereas I'm trying to account for all events, not just one.

[mgshamster]

If by "fully functional" you mean that the full caster parties are prone to being TPK'd and 'getting' to roll death saving throws, whereas the 'full martial' (whatever that means) parties aren't, sure.

He's talking about the classic caster-martial disparity, where once you reach high enough level, you start facin challenges that can only become overcome with magic. Having a party with no casters means you cannot overcome those challenges.

Hence, a full martial party cannot play an entire campaign without GM fiat.

[Vogonjeltz]

He's talking about the classic caster-martial disparity, where once you reach high enough level, you start facin challenges that can only become overcome with magic. Having a party with no casters means you cannot overcome those challenges.

Hence, a full martial party cannot play an entire campaign without GM fiat.

Can you point to even one example from a published campaign?

[mgshamster]

Can you point to even one example from a published campaign?

I don't know yet. I've only read Out of the Abyss, and I haven't analyzed it from the perspective of the caster-martial disparity.

I'm of the opinion that it is severely minimized compared to 3.X and especially PF, if it exists at all.

[Vogonjeltz]

I don't know yet. I've only read Out of the Abyss, and I haven't analyzed it from the perspective of the caster-martial disparity.

I'm of the opinion that it is severely minimized compared to 3.X and especially PF, if it exists at all.

the reason I ask is because I have out of the abyss, hoard of the dragon queen, rise of Tiamat, princes of the apocalypse, and lost mines of phandelver, and I'm simply unfamiliar with any challenge that magic could be considered requisite, where it could not be done by non magic wielding classes.

[mgshamster]

the reason I ask is because I have out of the abyss, hoard of the dragon queen, rise of Tiamat, princes of the apocalypse, and lost mines of phandelver, and I'm simply unfamiliar with any challenge that magic could be considered requisite, where it could not be done by non magic wielding classes.

At this point, the only thing I can think of is any opponent that is immune to non-magical attacks - such as the tarrasque.

But even with that, there are challenges that cannot be accomplished without magic, such as defeating an opponent on a different plane of existence or on the moon or in a location without breathable air - the kind of challenge you'd expect to be up against around level 20.

[Vogonjeltz]

At this point, the only thing I can think of is any opponent that is immune to non-magical attacks - such as the tarrasque.

But even with that, there are challenges that cannot be accomplished without magic, such as defeating an opponent on a different plane of existence or on the moon or in a location without breathable air - the kind of challenge you'd expect to be up against around level 20.

Statistically the characters will have found magic items, like weapons, allowing them to harm the tarrasque;

Natural portals to other planes exist, finding one would be de riguer for any high level campaign, the same way spells would require specific unique keys that would have to be sought.

[mgshamster]

Statistically the characters will have found magic items, like weapons, allowing them to harm the tarrasque;

Natural portals to other planes exist, finding one would be de riguer for any high level campaign, the same way spells would require specific unique keys that would have to be sought.

I concur; however, the argument goes that a martial character should be able to accomplish such goals without the aid of magic. Otherwise they're just dependent on a caster.

Which goes back to the original argument: the martial characters are unable to accomplish such goals without GM fiat.

(On another note, do natural portals exist in 5e? I know they did back in Planescape, but I haven't read through the planes rules for 5e yet).

[djreynolds]

How did you arrive at maxed strength and 7 feats? Is this v human? I am probably forgetting something.


ASI or Feat at 4th 6th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 19th.
That's 7 total.

Each ASI costs a feat.
Standard Array has a max stat of 15 in AL.
To get to 20 STR, it seems that you need two ASI's, leaving you 5 feats. With 1 feat for a vhuman, you are still short 1 feat.

What am I forgetting? (If two of the feats have to be chosen that each bump str +1 ... to get 20 STR by 6th you give up better feats like Alert or PAM until later).

You can have 7 feats,
max strength
and now you have 5 feats left over

Sorry, thought you knew, and English is my only language

Fighters pre- say 9th level- rule the roost. Everyone is behind a feat and the 4th level spells at 7th and 8th level are just right at the precipice of powerful. Every class is still trying to max out 1 or 2 stats, you maxed out strength at 6th level and took GWM at 8th. Very powerful class til 12th. As now everyone has gotten that 11th level class feature and another ASI.