Caster vs Martial

[cZak]

Not sure if I'm looking for an answer here... Guess this falls into a half-rant/ half suggestions post

And, understand that this is all personal perspective

My group has been playing 5e since it came out. As many as four different campaigns with an average of four players. Level range, on average, has capped about 10th+2 level. So we've had opportunity to use some of the wide swaths of specialization of the varying classes.

I tend to run casters (Wizards predominantly) in games.
I'm not generally a 'blaster'. I prefer to 'control', make enemies less/ allies more effective. But if I've got some concentration effect up (Web, Dust devil, Slow, etc...) I'll throw out a quick 'boom'.

RP-wise, my characters are 'aggressive diplomats'; I put up a tough front. Even the other player's can be hesitant to cross my character, as we've had campaigns of Mexican standoffs between party members (The Shakles).
But truth be told, the martials in the party, for the most part, seem capable of one-shotting (one round of actions) me. Looking over my character's options, I can't help but think, 'damn, I can't do that...'

In previous editions, there was the 'martials can't have nice things' complaint, and overall I agree.
But has the pendulum swung that far?
Not saying casters aren't powerful, but in survive-ability comparisons, seems martials have moved up.

[Potato_Priest]

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I think that martials and casters are balanced enough in combat.

Anyways, you feel like a martial could one-round you. My guess is that in some way, if you won initiative, you could probably do something pretty similar to them.

So if the martial wins initiative, you're dead.
But if you win initiative, and you hold person a martial with a bad wis save, what can he do? Basically, he's going to be stuck there for several turns while you shoot at him, for guaranteed crits every time. (In such a fight, scorching ray is perfect)
Even if you win initiative and just cast Slow on him, he's going to be pretty debilitated, and he's definitely not going to be able to one-round you anymore (unless, perhaps, the martial in question is a paladin who critical smites you)

[Matticusrex]

I think some popular feats should just be rolled in to martials so that they are not so reliant on them. things like polearm master, great weapon master, and sharpshooter could be given for free to all non-caster martials and they would still on average be slightly weaker than the caster. At my table we started offering a free feat to any player willing to play a non-caster (non-half caster) and it has worked out great in terms of power level difference shrinking.

[MrStabby]

Well caster vs martial depends a huge amount on the DM.

If you go dungeon crawling with lots of combat encounters and traps and no opportunity to rest inside the dungeon the martials are very strong. Buckets of HP, powerful at will ways of "solving problems" and functioning well even when their resources are limited is great.

At the other end of the scale casters are great at the strategic level - divination, teleport, building a castle, raising an undead army and martial classes can't compete at all.

At higher levels casters get a lot better simply due to growth of options. When you know a few spells then you kind of cast according to whatever spell slots you are willing to burn. At high levels when you know more spells you can try and target an enemies weak save whereas an martial character cannot pick which AC on an enemy to target.

There is no single point of balance between classes, the relative strength of each depends on the campaign type and what kind of stuff gets hand-waved away as well as more woolly things like DM style.

[Dr. Cliché]

I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me, but I think that martials and casters are balanced enough in combat.

I'd agree. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but by and large casters and martials seem well-balanced in 5th.

Martials tend to have better damage, but casters generally have more options (especially in terms of utility stuff).

In 5e so far, I've yet to see martials make casters redundant (or vice versa).

[Tanarii]

The complaint that casters are too powerful usually focuses on level 6+ spells. Remember that in the original scheme of D&D, these were 'epic' level magic use spells ... they were significantly post-name level. So they were massively powerful. Martials, or more specific Fighters, got castles and titles and armies instead.

And that was the problem ... the game started listing levels 1-20 as if they were all equal, and the idea shifted to party members being balanced at the same level. (Somewhat, relatively speaking, in theory, etc.) So 'casters are overpowered' became a watchword. (Edit: and it was focusing on high level play that wasn't seen regularly, but far more frequently than in the original game.)

In 5e, IMO level 5-10 is your mid-level tier, and 11-16 is high level play. Level 5-10 is where play is expected to be most common. So lvl 6+ spells, which have world-breaking applications, are once again high level play. But yes it will see play more often than (for example) AD&D 1e, so they've balanced it more than that edition or 3e.

IMX casters and Martials are extremely well balanced at mid-level, when they're all single class and it's a no-feat game. They aren't designed for pvp. But for cooperative adventuring, they well balanced contributors to combat, social and exploration overall. Although obviously some classes and backgrounds are more focused on some parts than others.

As to low level 5e ... I'm just happy casters get cantrips they can use unlimited times per day and 2 spells per day at first level. And rapidly gain spell slots through 5th level. :smallbiggrin:

[Jerrykhor]

Not a valid complaint. Casters have so much utility at their disposal, its ridiculous. At low levels, Sleep is auto win. At higher levels, you have plenty of CC to stop a martial dead. If you need damage, a fireball or something would blow them away, and it will ignore their AC, which they usually have plenty of.

Just for fun, I went for a round of PVP with my fellow Paladin ally after our campaign ended with a TPK. We were 6th level.

He won initiative and went first. He nova me with Smites and whatnot, but i was left with 6 hp. A Hellish rebuke and Fireball later, I won (he failed both saves). Even though I won, I don't think I would be so lucky every single fight. Most fights would still be determined by luck, and 1v1 is very swingy because of that. 5e combat just isn't balanced around 1v1 or PVP.

[Tanarii]

Just for fun, I went for a round of PVP with my fellow Paladin ally after our campaign ended with a TPK. We were 6th level.

He won initiative and went first. He nova me with Smites and whatnot, but i was left with 6 hp. A Hellish rebuke and Fireball later, I won (he failed both saves). Even though I won, I don't think I would be so lucky every single fight. Most fights would still be determined by luck, and 1v1 is very swingy because of that. 5e combat just isn't balanced around 1v1 or PVP.How wasn't this a tie? You fireballed at point blank range with 6 hp left ...

[JNAProductions]

Fireball a short distance behind the Paladin.

[Jerrykhor]

How wasn't this a tie? You fireballed at point blank range with 6 hp left ...

No, I cast it behind him so that only he is in the radius :smallbiggrin:

[Tanarii]

Fireball a short distance behind the Paladin.


No, I cast it behind him so that only he is in the radius :smallbiggrin:

Okay, I'm an idiot. :smallbiggrin:

[SharkForce]

so far, i don't think i've seen an "X vs Y" thread where one was a martial and the other was a caster that didn't put them close-ish to equal in an arena battle in a small area where leaving counts as losing, and didn't massively favour the caster in pretty much every other scenario.

basically, the typical scenario is that if the caster is played right, the martial character will likely have one round to win. and if the martial doesn't win in that one round (including if the caster gets the first turn), the caster has a lot of ways to disable the martial character, and probably gets to pick the battlefield, and potentially gets to shape the battlefield before the martial even gets there.

and the higher level you get, the worse it gets. if there is any length of prep time, it tends to get even worse for the martial, though not necessarily for all caster classes (sorcerers and warlocks, for example, are IME less likely to have ways to use last month's resources to solve this month's problems).

[Vogonjeltz]

How wasn't this a tie? You fireballed at point blank range with 6 hp left ...

I'm much more amazed that the Paladin failed two consecutive saving throws and then took enough damage from two spells to get knocked out.

[Jerrykhor]

I'm much more amazed that the Paladin failed two consecutive saving throws and then took enough damage from two spells to get knocked out.

Yeah, and i rolled quite high on the Hellish Rebuke damage, 23 out of a possible 30. So that knocked about half his hp. If he saved on either spell, I'm toast.

But yeah, its mostly luck. Sometimes its just not your day, and you will keep rolling low. I'm sure we all have those days.

[RulesJD]

Sub level 5? Maybe.

But even in Mid-Tier, Martials are by and large going to get wrecked by a prepared full caster, especially so with the Wizard spell list. The chances of any non-Wizard class making DC 15 Intelligence save against Phantasmal Force is small enough to basically make it an auto-win spell. Heat Metal gets you close too.

If you're looking at Martials and being impressed by their damage output, sure that's what they do. But wait until you start getting access to spells like Animate Objects (Tiny), Magic Missile + Empowered Evocation, upcast Spirit Guardians, etc. Martials by and large ramp up their damage quickly, and then level off past level 11. You can only smite so much, and Action Surge so much.

[Talionis]

3.5 was terrible to martials and very nice to Casters. 5E is much much better. Casters get less 6 plus level spells per day. Concentration helps to layering from being a problem so a good percentage of spells can't be cast while others are active. The lack of bonus spells for having high attributes also is nice. Casters even at 20 will not have a 6 plus spell for each encounter per day.

Martials now have the sustained damage and skills that can be done over and over and casters provide very limited instances of game changing stuff.

Low level Spell slots are alsonot as good as they used to be and you have competition to up cast those low level spells in higher slots.

I still wouldn't say it's totally balanced but I'm not sure it needs to be. The trick in 3.5 was that at some point as you leveled. Casters had more than enough resources and were better at everything. High level play just froze out and made it basically unfun for martials to be taken to higher levels and be played in the same game. Game play doesn't need to be equal but it does need to keep all classes relevant and fun at all tiers.