is it me or are spellcasters kinda overrated?

[Bannan_mantis]

On my table there is a large variety of player characters from the basic and passive heavy champion fighter to the quite complicated and hard to use mystic. Overall I haven't had much power differences, there has been a few times that there was one but that wasn't that big at all and just a small change levelled the playing field. Now with that in mind I've seen a lot of people talk about how spellcasters are much more powerful than martial characters and, on my table, this simply doesn't seem to be the case.

While spellcasters have a lot of things to do from clear out rooms in one turn, teleport across the battlefield and paralyse extremely dangerous foes they still go down 10x faster, don't do as much damage with their spells and don't last as long as martial characters.

That's not to say they're weaker, just that they're not vastly more powerful. Has anyone else witnessed someone talk about how weak martial characters are to spellcasters and feel they are wrong?

[Unoriginal]

On my table there is a large variety of player characters from the basic and passive heavy champion fighter to the quite complicated and hard to use mystic. Overall I haven't had much power differences, there has been a few times that there was one but that wasn't that big at all and just a small change levelled the playing field. Now with that in mind I've seen a lot of people talk about how spellcasters are much more powerful than martial characters and, on my table, this simply doesn't seem to be the case.

While spellcasters have a lot of things to do from clear out rooms in one turn, teleport across the battlefield and paralyse extremely dangerous foes they still go down 10x faster, don't do as much damage with their spells and don't last as long as martial characters.

That's not to say they're weaker, just that they're not vastly more powerful. Has anyone else witnessed someone talk about how weak martial characters are to spellcasters and feel they are wrong?

Yes, spellcasters are vastly overrated. They're not weaker or stronger than the rest of the classes, but some people will keep insisting caster supremacy is still a thing.

It's partly due to the fact casters were more powerful in 3.X, partly because in some people's imagination magic can do anything (when D&D magic clearly can't), and partly due to biased white room "analyses" where the spellcasters are always prepared exactly for the challenge while martials aren't.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I wouldn't say overrated, there are things that martials just can't do. Whether or not you believe they're stonger they are, at the very least, infinitely more versatile.

My personal taste is biased towards spellcasters because of their support capability. Martials can't bless the team, haste the rogue or cast water breathing when there's even a small chance of taking a swim.

To an extent, the idea that martials are capable of going longer than casters is also untrue. Martials have their own limitations, namely hit dice. They may wear out slower but they do wear out.

Casters are also shockingly durable. Abjuration Wizards can be competitive with Barbarians in effective hp. Moon Druids blow both completely out of the water. In my personal experience, your smaller hit die doesn't matter as much as it appears when you can completely prevent/instantly recover from damage.

Tl;dr - The versatility of casters makes them appear to be exceedingly strong. They're very good, but outside of notable exceptions (Moon Druid, Divination/Abjuration Wizard) you're still not running a high risk of completely overshadowing Martials. Even these notable exceptions aren't going to pose a much greater risk.

This is my opinion, based off of my own personal experience. YMMV.

[HereBeMonsters]

Its kind of what Unoriginal says. Its the perception of versatility. A fighter, no matter their load out really has but one option to hit things till its HP goes to 0. A wizard has a number of options from mind control. transmutation, illusions, etc all that give them a way to deal with a foe that doesn't even touch on their HP.

3.5 and PF have save or die spells, those spells made a lot of difference as they could end a threat without really needing to stop and focus on the threat, if it failed its save it died.

Another interesting aspect is, buffers. The fighter is great and all and he really shines brightly when buffed to high heaven by a good support caster. But some see that as proof the Support Caster is the real star, after all a Cleric who got lucky rolls can self-buff to be nearly as good in some regards.

5e its definitely not a secure thing but I have only played at level 5-6 currently, so once we get to higher levels its possible the casters will again pull ahead.

[MoiMagnus]

5e spell caster are mostly balanced with melee fighter.
However, which one is stronger is highly dependent of the kind of DM/campaign you have.

Feat favor fighter more than spell-casters. Same for magic items (except if you make a campaign over-saturated in magic items, then I think spell-caster are favored), because a fighter without magic weapons has a LOT of problems against a ton of monsters.

It is very easy for a DM to design a problem that can only be solved using magic (like needing plane shift, flight, ...). While you can craft the reverse one (with antimagic zones), you have less variety of such. However, if the DM only craft challenges that can be solved by your team (which is the case of most DMs), then those situations will never occur.

Lastly, spell-casters are long-rest classes, while fighter aren't all that much, which mean that "how many round of fight between each long rest" will change a lot of the balance. And since a lot of DM don't like attrition fight (so fight where there are no chances of loosing), they tend to so very few decisive fight instead, which heavily favor spell-casters (one per adventuring day, in the extreme case).

[Ignimortis]

Yes, spellcasters are vastly overrated. They're not weaker or stronger than the rest of the classes, but some people will keep insisting caster supremacy is still a thing.

Because it is. Caster supremacy isn't limited to casters eclipsing martial characters in combat, 5e fixed that. But it's still around in casters being able to influence the world around them incredibly better, because they get, well, for starters, Plane Shift, Resurrection, Scrying and Teleport. What does a martial gain of equal value and/or influence? Nothing. Another Extra Attack or a few hitpoints or some more damage. Despite the fact that those spells are severely limited in comparison to their 3.5 counterparts, they're still spellcaster-unique options that nobody without magic can imitate.

To the topic on hand, though, spellcasters are overrated on these forums because many people (like me, I guess) prefer having a character with clear limitations and "buttons" to press that create a specific effect. Since most things that aren't class features, spells or basic attacks have increasingly vague and DM-dependent usability and results, having more of those features (aka spells) feels better.

[LudicSavant]

On my table there is a large variety of player characters from the basic and passive heavy champion fighter to the quite complicated and hard to use mystic. Overall I haven't had much power differences, there has been a few times that there was one but that wasn't that big at all and just a small change levelled the playing field. Now with that in mind I've seen a lot of people talk about how spellcasters are much more powerful than martial characters and, on my table, this simply doesn't seem to be the case.

While spellcasters have a lot of things to do from clear out rooms in one turn, teleport across the battlefield and paralyse extremely dangerous foes they still go down 10x faster, don't do as much damage with their spells and don't last as long as martial characters.

That's not to say they're weaker, just that they're not vastly more powerful. Has anyone else witnessed someone talk about how weak martial characters are to spellcasters and feel they are wrong?

A class having a higher potential power level when optimized doesn't necessarily mean that you'll see it played to that power level at your table.

If your Moon Druids or Abjurers or the like are going down 10x faster, then chances are they're not optimized. Which is fine, but you shouldn't take that as representative of the full mechanical potential of those classes.

[Contrast]

It depends really. Spell casters can expand the remit of appropriate encounters for a party quite significantly. This doesn't necessary make them immediately more powerful in any given situation but they usually have more potential options open to them.

Even without getting into complicated things which require magic I played in a game the other day where we got attacked by 15 bandits. When 2 people went down the first turn the evoker wizard casting Fireball two times in a row turned what initially looked like a party wipe into a manageable encounter. No martial could have achieved that. Flying enemies or underwater enemies are a real problem if you don't have the necessary magic.

A lot depends on the type of game you run, if the DM tailors encounters to the party as well as the number of encounters.

[noob]

Stuff like tracking will randomly work or not work depending on the gm and its mood and of a dice (the latter is a wrong idea) while a spell have a clear effect.
It is caused by the fact the skills are left unclear so that the gm does whatever it wants with those but in fact a gm most of the time will want the players to succeed in finding the plot or will even ram the plot in their throat as hard as possible but skills checks suggests that not easy tasks(and even easy ones) should be randomly subject to failure while plot searching spells most of the time does not implements that concept(locate potato will in a given circumstance either auto fail(the potato is behind a layer of lead or something) or the spell will auto succeed(there is nothing preventing the potato from being found))).
I personally think that skills should never require a roll under any circumstance in order to make them in line with spells in term of campaign design.(Unless you want the climax of the campaign where the adventurers starts climbing toward the orb of oblivion to reach it before a giant reach it to be resolved by some dice throws with advantages if the adventurers find a clever thing to do which is usually considered as too much reducing by many people)

[Pelle]

Because it is. Caster supremacy isn't limited to casters eclipsing martial characters in combat, 5e fixed that. But it's still around in casters being able to influence the world around them incredibly better, because they get, well, for starters, Plane Shift, Resurrection, Scrying and Teleport.

Yes, though it depends on the perception of the people playing. If you only care about combat and see the GMs job as throwing level appropriate encounters at the party, then it's probably not much of a supremacy. If you play a more player driven sandbox, casters probably have more tools to make it easier to achieve their goals. If it's a GM driven linear game, the wizard having to cast Teleport to get to the adventure might be more of a caster tax.

I remember in a 3.5 game I was running, from my point of view the unoptimized druid was dominating the game, using his scrying and shapeshifting abilities to scout and infiltrate. Thanks to his abilities the party could avoid the big host of enemies, and pick their fights with smaller units. To the more powergamey inclined player, the druid wasn't seen as powerful though, because it didn't dominate in the actual combats they got into. The CaW benefits it provided were just seen as story excuses to get them into 'fair' combats. If you have this attitude, I wouldn't worry much about caster supremacy in 5e.

[qube]

Casters also get overrated, as players get drunk on their abilities.


Caster supremacy ... because they get, well, for starters, Plane Shift, Resurrection, Scrying and Teleport.t. What does a martial gain of equal value and/or influence? Nothing. Another Extra Attack or a few hitpoints or some more damage
"What does a martial gain of equal value" is a question that implies the caster got something of value.

... in reality - if the party actually needed a teleport - they'd get one provided to them. No DM sets up a story that goes. "Oh, wait, you guys don't have teleport? I guess the quest ends here, and I'll just chuck 3 days worth of preperation in the bin ... and, oh, yeah, the next 3 sessions you guys should totally show up, but I won't let you do anything and I won't let you go on a different adventure"
It doesn't make sense. Not only can the wizard player be ill that session, (s)he could simply not have the teleport spell.

As there is no value in getting something you don't really need, there's also no need for meleers to get big compensation for it.

but ... wow ... it's an PC sacrificng a spellslot for it, opposite to an NPC doing it ... so I guess we should al fall on our knees. Give me a wizard who knows the value of a fireball, hold person or banishment spell over one who teleports ANY day of the week, and twice on gamenight.

[Unoriginal]

Casters also get overrated, as players get drunk on their abilities.


"What does a martial gain of equal value" is a question that implies the caster got something of value.

... in reality - if the party actually needed a teleport - they'd get one provided to them. No DM sets up a story that goes. "Oh, wait, you guys don't have teleport? I guess the quest ends here, and I'll just chuck 3 days worth of preperation in the bin ... and, oh, yeah, the next 3 sessions you guys should totally show up, but I won't let you do anything and I won't let you go on a different adventure"
It doesn't make sense. Not only can the wizard player be ill that session, (s)he could simply not have the teleport spell.

As there is no value in getting something you don't really need, there's also no need for meleers to get big compensation for it.

but ... wow ... it's an PC sacrificng a spellslot for it, opposite to an NPC doing it ... so I guess we should al fall on our knees. Give me a wizard who knows the value of a fireball, hold person or banishment spell over one who teleports ANY day of the week, and twice on gamenight.

This.

Spells like Teleport and Plane Shift are pretty nice... but being the group's chauffeur isn't a sign of supremacy.


Note that I'm perfectly fine with a sandbox situation where the PCs en up way too far from an event to intervene. Because that's what a sandbox adventure's all about: stuff happens all around, even outside of the PCs' range, and sometime they'll be able to get there on time and sometime not. Having the means to go to X place or not both have different consequences, and both are legitimate.

[PhoenixPhyre]

A few responses--

1. The "classic" spells (teleport, plane shift, etc) don't come online until the end of most campaigns if at all, as most end by the beginning of T3 or so. They've also been dramatically toned down in power--teleport now always carries a risk of ending up off target unless you're going to a permanent circle or you have an associated object. And it's 7th level, so level 13. Scrying is much more weak and limited--either you're following one specific person for a bit or you have an immobile sensor somewhere you know. It's also 5th level, so level 9 (where you can cast it 1x/day at the cost of your only 5th level slot). Resurrection (where you start being able to strongly affect the plot) is also high level.

2. For whatever reason, people are more likely to give "generous" interpretations for spells than they are for non-spells. It's the Guy at the Gym issue--since we don't have a frame of reference for spells (unlike physical acts), we tend to be more generous with them. By the rules, however, spells do exactly (and only) what they say they do. Nothing more, nothing less. So all the tricksy uses founder.

3. In play, the balance is close enough that unless you're in very particular areas/types of games the difference won't be tremendous. There's very little accidental unbalance--no more "oh, you picked monk and I picked druid...I win".

4. Oh, and the majority of all class/sub-class combinations are spell-casters. Every class gets a sub-class that can cast spells; magic initiate/ritual caster are open to all if you've got feats.

[Chronos]

Maybe you don't need a teleport, but it can still come in really handy sometimes. If you never find yourself in a situation where having teleport is much more useful than not having it, then your DM isn't world-building; he's world-reacting.

And there are also some new and exciting ways that casters are better, that weren't in 3rd edition. Two examples: First, casters now have (right out of the box) worthwhile at-will abilities. Sure, (most) cantrips don't do as much damage as a well-built martial's attacks, but that's in addition to their per-day abilities, and while spell slots last, casters are doing more damage than martials. So even once the party runs out of spell slots, it takes the martials a long time to catch up, even just on damage, the one thing they're good at (without even considering non-damaging spells).

Second, in 3rd edition, multiclassing worked fairly well on martials, but was disastrous for casters (except into prestige classes designed to be overpowered). Now, though, that's reversed: Casters can multiclass fairly smoothly, as long as they're using upcast spells, but most of what martials do doesn't stack very well. So at high levels of optimization, you've got sorlock bardadins competing against straight classes, or against failed optimizaton attempts that don't work until levels so high that nobody ever gets to them.

[Zalabim]

Because it is. Caster supremacy isn't limited to casters eclipsing martial characters in combat, 5e fixed that. But it's still around in casters being able to influence the world around them incredibly better, because they get, well, for starters, Plane Shift, Resurrection, Scrying and Teleport. What does a martial gain of equal value and/or influence? Nothing. Another Extra Attack or a few hitpoints or some more damage. Despite the fact that those spells are severely limited in comparison to their 3.5 counterparts, they're still spellcaster-unique options that nobody without magic can imitate.
What is "a Cubic Gate, a Rod of Resurrection, a Crystal Ball, and a Helm of Teleportation" Many Legendary and the rod requires attunement by a cleric, druid, paladin (or thief), but there's no particular reason level 13+ adventures should have no magic. Anyone can appreciate those items. Magic enables more types of adventures.

I wouldn't say overrated, there are things that martials just can't do. Whether or not you believe they're stonger they are, at the very least, infinitely more versatile.
This is the exact kind of sentiment that makes me say yes, spellcasters are overrated. Casters are more self-contained or self-explained in the PHB. If there's some spell that's important in the game, it's never limited to just one spellcaster. There's always an item that copies it.

[JMS]

5e is very well balanced, overall, but I will say that casters have options that martials don't. Sure, your caster and martial are close to the same in combat, unless optimizing significantly, but even at lower levels, casters get options that martials simply... don't. I'm not talking Wish and Gate, but Prestidigitation and illusions. This level of option difference grows as you gain levels.

Simply put, if you think of D&D as a game of pulling on levers to achieve goals, Martials can pull a few levers very well, casters can simply create new, useful levers from thin air, and use them to great effect

[Contrast]

Casters also get overrated, as players get drunk on their abilities.


"What does a martial gain of equal value" is a question that implies the caster got something of value.

... in reality - if the party actually needed a teleport - they'd get one provided to them. No DM sets up a story that goes. "Oh, wait, you guys don't have teleport? I guess the quest ends here, and I'll just chuck 3 days worth of preperation in the bin ... and, oh, yeah, the next 3 sessions you guys should totally show up, but I won't let you do anything and I won't let you go on a different adventure"
It doesn't make sense. Not only can the wizard player be ill that session, (s)he could simply not have the teleport spell.

As there is no value in getting something you don't really need, there's also no need for meleers to get big compensation for it.

but ... wow ... it's an PC sacrificng a spellslot for it, opposite to an NPC doing it ... so I guess we should al fall on our knees. Give me a wizard who knows the value of a fireball, hold person or banishment spell over one who teleports ANY day of the week, and twice on gamenight.

Yes and no. In a campaign I'm in we've just had to go on a long side track to get someone resurrected, allowing the enemies who are working to kill us to do whatever they're doing (which has already resulted in one unchecked demon summoning). We desperately need to alert someone to the potential danger but they're several weeks travel away. If we had access to Sending we could save ourselves several trips we need to make. Has the campaign ground to a halt because we don't have these resources on hand? No. Would we be in a better position if we had them? Yes.

In the Planeshift or Teleport example the difference could be between the BBEG leaving and being immediately caught or having time to organise his forces, do an evil ritual and coming back with an army.

It depends how railroady your game is really. If you will always get to the same point in the game in the same situation then yes the abilities will have less impact. If the DM has a more responsive approach to running a game where player input has a significant impact on outcome then these abilities are hugely influential.

[Unoriginal]

Maybe you don't need a teleport, but it can still come in really handy sometimes. If you never find yourself in a situation where having teleport is much more useful than not having it, then your DM isn't world-building; he's world-reacting.


True, but it does not make the casters superior. It's useful, not a mark of superiority.




And there are also some new and exciting ways that casters are better, that weren't in 3rd edition. Two examples: First, casters now have (right out of the box) worthwhile at-will abilities. Sure, (most) cantrips don't do as much damage as a well-built martial's attacks, but that's in addition to their per-day abilities, and while spell slots last, casters are doing more damage than martials. So even once the party runs out of spell slots, it takes the martials a long time to catch up, even just on damage, the one thing they're good at (without even considering non-damaging spells).

Casters are good at AoE damage... and that's it.

The strongest direct-damage-dealing spell is Meteor Swarm, a spell that even a lvl 20 casters can only cast once a day, and it deals at best 40d6 of damage, for an average of 120 damages. A lvl 20 Fighter can easily do 120 damages in 3 turns or less without spending any ressources.

So no, there is no "it takes the martials a long time to catch up, even just on damage, the one thing they're good at".

And aside from Eldritch Blast with the appropriate Invocations, all the cantrips are inferior in damage to a martial's basic attack, at equivalent level by a big margin.



Second, in 3rd edition, multiclassing worked fairly well on martials, but was disastrous for casters (except into prestige classes designed to be overpowered). Now, though, that's reversed: Casters can multiclass fairly smoothly, as long as they're using upcast spells, but most of what martials do doesn't stack very well. So at high levels of optimization, you've got sorlock bardadins competing against straight classes, or against failed optimizaton attempts that don't work until levels so high that nobody ever gets to them.

Again, none of those caster multiclasses are superior to straight classes. They're at best better at one thing at the cost of others.



Simply put, if you think of D&D as a game of pulling on levers to achieve goals, Martials can pull a few levers very well, casters can simply create new, useful levers from thin air, and use them to great effect

I'm sorry, but that analogy and that reasoning don't hold up.

Casters cannot create new, useful levers from thin air. Not any more than martials can. They have access to different levels, which they can use in a limited fashion, a limited number of times per day.

Spells are limited in effect, and in use.


The only way to "create more levers" is to use imagination and cleverness to turn the environment and the situation to your advantage, like improvising a trap or pushing a barrel on enemies who are pursuing you up the stairs. Not "press spell button".


Granted, illusions allow a lot of useful tricks, but those tricks do not make the caster superior.


Yes and no. In a campaign I'm in we've just had to go on a long side track to get someone resurrected, allowing the enemies who are working to kill us to do whatever they're doing (which has already resulted in one unchecked demon summoning). We desperately need to alert someone to the potential danger but they're several weeks travel away. If we had access to Sending we could save ourselves several trips we need to make. Has the campaign ground to a halt because we don't have these resources on hand? No. Would we be in a better position if we had them? Yes.

In the Planeshift or Teleport example the difference could be between the BBEG leaving and being immediately caught or having time to organise his forces, do an evil ritual and coming back with an army.

It depends how railroady your game is really. If you will always get to the same point in the game in the same situation then yes the abilities will have less impact. If the DM has a more responsive approach to running a game where player input has a significant impact on outcome then these abilities are hugely influential.


Again, all those options the spells offer are *useful*, but being able to provide those options does not make casters superior.

Yes, if the Wizard has Teleport prepared, and enough spell slots, you can pursue the BBEG... but if you don't, it's not the end. There are consequences to both.

Never mistake the sugar that makes the medicine easier to swallow for the medicine itself.


I suppose that the fact pressing a button to solves a problem can seem much more awesome than solving it in other ways is one of the roots of that "caster supremacy" thinking, though.

[Anonymouswizard]

Because it is. Caster supremacy isn't limited to casters eclipsing martial characters in combat, 5e fixed that. But it's still around in casters being able to influence the world around them incredibly better, because they get, well, for starters, Plane Shift, Resurrection, Scrying and Teleport. What does a martial gain of equal value and/or influence? Nothing. Another Extra Attack or a few hitpoints or some more damage. Despite the fact that those spells are severely limited in comparison to their 3.5 counterparts, they're still spellcaster-unique options that nobody without magic can imitate.

This. As a side note, 5e is very well balanced while you're playing single classed characters during the levels the designers focused on (very roughly levels 3-12), and breaks down a bit before and after that. Especially afterwards, as most of the things that are magic-exclusive only really come into play with spell levels 5+.

If you look at games with well balanced magic and mundanes, either mundanes get the ability to be almost as good as magicians (no they can't teleport past the mountain, but they can scale it in an hour), magicians are throttled back significantly more than 5e through sharply limited resources or effects*, or making being a good magician a massive investment. When teleporting a mile costs a day's mana regeneration a good pair of boots and a stout walking stick start to look like a decent option. Scrying's the killer though, any form of easy divination magic makes normal investigation pretty much redundant for PC purposes. It's one of the reasons I tend to like Wuxia games, magic is so much less powerful combat-wise than martial arts** that priests and sorcerers use it as utility instead of offense (and generally pretty limited utility at that), and so any points sunk towards being good at magic are points not put into actually being able to take down the Ox King (adaquate sage, subordinate to heaven).

* Commonly both, so there's no teleportation and you're lucky to cast more than a handful of spells before needing to rest.
** Magical martial arts are still martial arts, and therefore practiced by warriors.

[Contrast]

The strongest direct-damage-dealing spell is Meteor Swarm, a spell that even a lvl 20 casters can only cast once a day, and it deals at best 40d6 of damage, for an average of 120 damages. A lvl 20 Fighter can easily do 120 damages in 3 turns or less without spending any ressources.

...I can't help but feel you're making that argument in bad faith. Meteor storm kills armies, castles, hordes of elite troops instantly and at great range. A better comparison would be a ranger spamming Volley and there really is no comparison between the two.

I don't think martials are bad (by far the most OP thing I've seen in the game was a Battlemaster in a game where the DM had changed short rests to 5 mins and let us take as many as we wanted) but casters just are a lot more flexible. That flexibility depends on their spell selection and relies on having spell slots left of course. Sometimes they'll be worse, sometimes they'll be better but I would argue they are better able to adapt to unfavourable circumstances than the martials are. How useful that is will depend on how often the party is presented with unfavourable circumstances.

[TheUser]

Casters are not overrated in the slightest.

Casters and Martials work off eachother most of the time to help shore up the other's weaknesses but a party of martials is going to struggle where a party of casters would be fine in 95% of situations. As stated earlier, casters have supreme versatility.


The only time casters need martials is when boss monsters with limited magic immunity start rearing their ugly heads and DM's don't allow them to be damaged by summons (only seen it once).

In all tiers of play having the right spell for the job where you shutdown one big bad or blast a whole group of enemies is more useful than squeezing out that extra bit of DPR on a boss fight.

If anything, casters are far more resillient than martials because they have the tools to undo negative effects and resist them (Shield, Absorb Elements, Stoneskin, Greater Restoration, Healing, Dispel Magic, Ressurection to name a few...)

Casters, however, require an exceptional level of system mastery by having to know both their own class features and abilities as well as pour over heaps of spells to optimize their experience. They must also have the creativity and situational awareness to apply them properly and manage their resources more carefully than most martials. Casters are more difficult to play to their fullest potential but reap the benefits.

EDIT: Anyone who wants to compare Meteor Swarm to 3 rounds of auto-attacks is bringing some heavy bias into the discussion and is not arguing in good faith. This is one spell which is designed for massive destruction across an area at massive range. If you wanted to compare level 9 spells for single target damage you could go with Shapechange, True Polymorph, Invulnerabiliy or Wish. Become a CR 20 creature and see how the Fighter's DPR compares or just take 0 damage from everything...

[Unoriginal]

...I can't help but feel you're making that argument in bad faith. Meteor storm kills armies, castles, hordes of elite troops instantly and at great range.

Indeed, it can kills a horde of elite troops. As I said, casters are good at AoE damages.

But Meteor Swarm's average damage is not enough to kill an Adult Black Dragon, or a Storm Giant. Which are CR 14 and CR 13, respectively.

In fact, the wizard would need to get a 6 on 34 of the dices and a 5 on the remaining ones to be able to one shot a CR 13 Storm Giants.

And how many time per day is a character in a lvl 20 group expected to be able to face a CR 13 encounter, compared to how many time they can be expected to face a horde of enemies wide enough for them to occupy all of a Meteor Swarm's AoE?

My point is, the casters certainly are not better at doing damage in adventuring situations.



A better comparison would be a ranger spamming Volley and there really is no comparison between the two.

It's not a better comparison.



I don't think martials are bad (by far the most OP thing I've seen in the game was a Battlemaster in a game where the DM had changed short rests to 5 mins and let us take as many as we wanted) but casters just are a lot more flexible. That flexibility depends on their spell selection and relies on having spell slots left of course. Sometimes they'll be worse, sometimes they'll be better but I would argue they are better able to adapt to unfavourable circumstances than the martials are. How useful that is will depend on how often the party is presented with unfavourable circumstances.

Casters are useful. Martials are useful. What I'm arguing is that casters are not superior.

Also let it be said, casters are only adaptable if they get the time to prepare. If they're thrown in a situation they're not prepared for, they tend to do much worse.

[Anonymouswizard]

CCasters, however, require an exceptional level of *system mastery* by having to know both your own features and abilities as well as pour over heaps of spells to optimize your experience. Along with the creativity and situational awareness to apply them properly within the context of this fantasy world. Casters are more difficult to play to their fullest potential but reap the benefits.

To expand on this, the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard are by far the most powerful classes in the game*, if played completely optimally. Once we leave the white room and go into actual play whether or not they're so powerful depends on player skill at reading the GM and selecting loadouts. Most players will pick a somewhat versatile standard loadout that fits their preferred role and then swap out a relatively small number of spells when they know they're going to need something specific. The strengths of casters is that with decent foresight they can cover 90% of problems that arise, and with the right spells and some preparation can deal with the other 10%. The weaknesses are that an unprepared caster might as well have decided their spells by rolling dice, they have no way to be certain anything they have will be useful.

This is especially true if the GM allows homebrew spells, you might end up with a set of incredibly specific spells (I'm still trying to get a GM to okay 'change sex' as a 1st level spell). A wizard about town prepares a very different set of spells to one in a dungeon (barring the extensive defensive magic all wizards prepare out of habit).

Mundane have the benefit of a higher floor but a lower ceiling. When playing a mundane character you'll never come across a place where your primary features are completely useless (even if you're a Fighter or a Barbarian), but even with perfect play you won't be able to destroy entire towns before being taken down.

* Not to the point of 3.X, but 3.X casters had a multitude of ways to increase their power not available to anybody else.

[Merudo]

While spellcasters have a lot of things to do from clear out rooms in one turn, teleport across the battlefield and paralyse extremely dangerous foes they still go down 10x faster


It's not that casters are overrated. It's that armor proficiencies are underrated in general.

Switching from Light Armor to Medium Armor can be a +5 increase to AC. Switching from Light Armor to Heavy Armor can be a +6. That's where the big difference is.

If you put a Fighter & a spellcaster with the same AC & constitution they'll be roughly as durable. In practice the armored spellcaster can have more AC than the Fighter as many Fighters don't use a shield (they tend to go for two-handed stuff).

That's why experts like @Treantmonk tend to advocate for the Valor Bard - although the extra spells of the Lore Bard are super flashy, ultimately a permanent +5 to AC is often more valuable.

[ProsecutorGodot]

This is the exact kind of sentiment that makes me say yes, spellcasters are overrated. Casters are more self-contained or self-explained in the PHB. If there's some spell that's important in the game, it's never limited to just one spellcaster. There's always an item that copies it.
I've got a few issues with this sort of logic:
-First is that Magic Items are never a given. Even at the tier of play that a Wizard can cast Teleport, there's no guarantee that you'll have access to an item that replicates that.
-Second, this doesn't interfere with the spellcasters versatility even if the party does have these items. In fact, it compounds on it because they can now focus on other equally as useful things that they may have given up on previously to have this magic item spell prepared.
-Third, and this branches slightly off of the second, is that Magic Items that replicate these spells are equally as useful to the spellcasters as they are to the martials. It's not really a point in favor of either.

[Zuras]

Spellcasters aren’t overrated by most players who have played significant amounts of 5e, especially if they played 3.5–they will see that caster supremacy has been toned down severely.

However, casters have several elements that make them much flashier than martials:

All high level spells are long rest resources, so any time the party gets to abuse the Five Minute Work Day or plans a brilliant ambush in a Combat as War style campaign, casters will look amazing compared to martials.

Look at it another way—imagine a sandbox campaign where PCs from the four base classes (Fighter, wizard, Cleric, Rogue) hit level 20 and retired to run their own organizations.

Each of them have plenty of henchmen of every class, up to level 10 or so—how often would each PC get called on by the others for help?

I would argue that the effective power difference between a 10th level Wizard and a 20th level one is much greater than the gap between a 10th and 20th level Fighter, and the Cleric and Wizard will end up doing many more favors for their buddies than vice versa.

Granted, there are definitely things in a D&D campaign that you need a 20th level Fighter or Rogue for, but (and this is how 5e keeps them feeling balanced in most actual play) almost any time you need a 20th level martial over a 10th level one you probably need to get the whole band back together.

[noob]

A simple thing is why pick one character worth of stuff when you can have one and a half character worth of stuff by playing a bard.

[Frozenstep]

Part of the problem is that it's really, really easy for DM's to throw situations at the party that are optimal for a caster. Single encounter a day? Hordes of small creatures? Single creatures without magic resistance or legendary saves? Enemies that are slow and have few ranged attacks? All of them make a caster shine.

Casters are very versatile, so creatures they know well are also a situation in which they can shine. If you don't know the enemy well, suddenly casters have a few more hurdles like figuring out what saves the enemy is bad at (although it's easy for a DM to give the caster more information, defeating that...), which could result in wasted spells and turns. If a caster doesn't know what the enemy is capable of, there's a lot of potential for mistakes (losing a spell because you didn't know they had dispel magic/counter spell, trying illusion vs something with truesight, trying charm/fear/paralyze vs something immune to it...). Meanwhile it's rare for going up and hitting things with magical weapons to be the wrong choice.

[qube]

Would we be in a better position if we had them? Yes.yeah... but that's only because you're now trying to compare your existing party & what they've done, to your existing party & what they've done .... AND an extra party member that's a spellcaster. I hope you can agree that "we would have been in a better position with an extra partymember" isn't really the best arugment.

----
Also, ... I have some serious questions with either the ingeniutiy of your party, or your DM's worldbuilding skills. You mean to tell us, you somehow ended up 400 miles from civilsation (24 mile per day travel speed at "several weeks" away from the nearest messenger)? ... IRL that only happens if you're standing in the middle of the Saharah AND all villiages around oasisses were genocided.

Also, Also - even at that distance: a simple carrier pigeon would have solved your problem.


I can't help but feel you're making that argument in bad faith. Meteor storm kills armies, castles, hordes of elite troops instantly and at great range.well, now you're twisting the pendulum the other way
4 40ft radius blasts isn't going to kill an entire army
meteor swarm doesn't do much against castles except puts the roofs on fire (if not threated against it). Meteor swarm damages creatures and puts flamable objects on fire.
"By the rules, however, spells do exactly (and only) what they say they do. Nothing more, nothing less."
~~ PhoenixPhyre, a few posts up
long range killing is also silly, because you expend your lvl 9 spellslot for something the sharpshooter spends 5 gp on.


Become a CR 20 creature and see how the Fighter's DPR comparesAlphabetically first CR 20 monster - Ancient Brass dragon. 49 damage @ +14 attack bonus.

... that's 4 attacks by with a 1d8 (magic +3) weapon by anyone with 20 in his attack stats. (No feautres, no feats, no magic weapon specilized in damage, no special build, not a 1d10 or 2d6 weapon, etc ... only the +3 )

... oh yeah, the dragons damage gets halved when the enemy has resistance to non-magical physical damage.

[Unoriginal]

I've got a few issues with this sort of logic:
-First is that Magic Items are never a given.

Casters having the right spell prepared and the necessary spell slot available is never a given either.

Yet those who claim casters are superior always argue as if it was

[Shuruke]

I'd like to state that

Casters arent superior their just better at different things

Martials (Fighter ,Paladin, Barbarian)
They are meant to be the front line
And sure some wizard or other misc builds can try to be a better frontline but those 3 outside of the moon druid level 2 power spike will be the tanks and will be able to take more punishment then other classes

It boils down to what u want from the game

D10 and d12 classes are meant to be upfront melee warriors in most builds with the least amount of options versatility wise. Ie you pick and are locked in. (yes fighter can be an archer but that is specefic build)

D8 classes will generally want go back and forth from being in frontline to ranged or have things to help them survive melee. Generally have more out of combat options then d10 and d12 with exception being monk

D6. These classes generally don't want to be anywhere near frontline but in exchange bring a lot of options to table.


In the end u find a class u think you'll like how it plays and you play it

Some things are better in certain situations but dnd doesn't have a pick this superior better option other than bards and sorcerers really liking that eldritch blast from Warlock through mc or magic intiate

[Sigreid]

My experience at my table is that casters aren't great at dealing with powerful opponents by themselves. Martial characters aren't great at dealing with masses of opponents but are great at dealing with powerful opponents. Spellcasters are great at setting the martials up to deal with the powerful opponents.

[MoiMagnus]

Casters having the right spell prepared and the necessary spell slot available is never a given either.

Yet those who claim casters are superior always argue as if it was

Caster supremacy usually rely on the absence of time constrains. If you don't have time constraints, you can wait for a long rest, change your prepared spells, and have the needed spell slots. Going in the same direction, Caster have easier access to the "retreat, heal/resurect, wait and attack again".

(And the absence of time constrains seems to be reasonnably frequent among the campaigns. Since even in official scenarios, a lot of DMs tend to relax time constraints by allowing long rest where and when it shouldn't be possible.)

I disagree on caster's supremacy as an adventurer, they may be unbalanced, but not in a significant way.
However, world-building wise, casters have a better life. If you take your retreat as a spell-caster after your adventuring journey, you will have an easier reconversion to the civil life than a fighter.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Casters having the right spell prepared and the necessary spell slot available is never a given either.

Yet those who claim casters are superior always argue as if it was

I'm not claiming that they'll have the spells prepared, I'm claiming that if a Wizard levels up with the goal to learn Teleport, they will learn Teleport, or Plane Shift, or Meteor Swarm etc etc. If your Fighter sets out with the goal of acquiring a Voyager Staff so that he can Teleport, or a Staff of the Magi in hopes to cast powerful magic he's going to have to not only find the Staff but also a spellcaster to use it.

The fact that Magic Items can "replace" a spellcasters versatility isn't always true. It can in some cases (Wands, Rings or Wondrous Items) but many of these items only expand the spellcasters versatility because a martial still can't use those items. It's not an accident that most magical items that grant high-level spells require attunement by a spellcaster. Otherwise, those magical effects that high-level spellcasters just get to have are locked behind Legendary items, some of which the martial is wholly incapable of using anyway.

The most a martial character can consistently and within reason get away with is having access to 5th level spells via a Ring of Spell Storing. This still requires that the martial ask his spellcaster buddies to cast the magic for him. Otherwise, universally usable magic items that replicate spells almost always stop at 4th level, excluding Legendary and Artifact-level items.

Obviously, it's ridiculous to argue that a spellcaster is expected to always be prepared with Plane Shift in the event that they're transported against their will into an alternate plane. This in itself isn't a problem though, as any Archmage worth his salt has Magnificient Mansion (or Tiny Hut, for the frugal or less well off Wizards) prepared so that he can take a rest and prepare Plane Shift for his escape.

[Steel Mirror]

I've learned never to make blanket statements about other people's tables, so I'm prefacing this by saying this is my experience in my games as GM at my table. May not apply to anyone else's experience at all.

But for me and my games, in real playing conditions, casters have tended to be less versatile than mundane characters. I think this is partly because my games tend to be played from level 1 up to maybe 14 or so, with the vast majority of play in the 5-10 level range. The really crazy spells don't have the chance to come online.

Partly I think it's because of resource hoarding and nova-ing. Mages tend not to use spell slots or limited resources during encounters that they don't see as critical, even in situations where objectively the expenditure of a couple resources would probably be a good thing. Combine that with their increased fragility (usually) and fewer skill options (sometimes), and the mundanes might be dashing around trying to take advantage of terrain or using their skills to engineer advantageous situations, while the casters tend to hang back so as not to be exposed and use cantrips all battle.

Now while casters may tend to be less versatile and tend to be a bit more static in non-critical encounters, the flipside of that is that when a caster novas, using a significant portion of their spells and consumable resources in a single encounter, they really do shine. Not so much that they make the rest of the party superfluous mind you, but in those encounters PC strategy really tends to revolve around what spells the mage has prepared, how to get her into best position and make sure she gets her good spells off, and so on. The other PCs are vital and get to do their own awesome thing, but the centerpiece is often the casters, not the muggles.

tl;dr- counter to what a lot of optimizers often say about magical types being the most versatile and having wider options in 5E, in my experience under real playing conditions, it's actually the opposite. Mundanes tend to be more versatile and often engage the game world using creative actions, while mages tend to hoard their resources to be exerted at a strategic moment of maximum leverage rather than using resources over an adventure to circumvent smaller obstacles. But again, YMMV.

[Anonymouswizard]

Minor note, whether or not casters are overpowered to you will depend on the games you are familiar with. People used to The Dark Eye are going to have a very different view to those who have played Exalted or Mage: the Ascenion.

Bare in mind that there were a lot of people who didn't see the caster superiority in 3.X. While 5e is much closer to 0e-2e in terms of mundane/magic balance it's not quite as balanced as 4e was.

As a side note, there are games where the magic/mundane balance causes mundanes to have the upper hand. It generally comes from magic in such games being weak, expensive, difficult, or a combination of the three. When a basic attack spell costs a third of a mage's MP, takes as long to cast as two regular attacks, and doesn't exceed two bow shots in damage magic users will be highly prized for utility, but normally also expected to have combat skills.

Finally you also have games like d6 Fantasy, where magic can be as broken as you want it to be due to DIY spell systems. Want a spell that can be cast on a 10+ that deals 20d damage to anybody within a mile of the caster? You'll have to comprimise on casting time, travel time, and maybe include some material components, but you can do it!

[noob]

I'm not claiming that they'll have the spells prepared, I'm claiming that if a Wizard levels up with the goal to learn Teleport, they will learn Teleport, or Plane Shift, or Meteor Swarm etc etc. If your Fighter sets out with the goal of acquiring a Voyager Staff so that he can Teleport, or a Staff of the Magi in hopes to cast powerful magic he's going to have to not only find the Staff but also a spellcaster to use it.

The fact that Magic Items can "replace" a spellcasters versatility isn't always true. It can in some cases (Wands, Rings or Wondrous Items) but many of these items only expand the spellcasters versatility because a martial still can't use those items. It's not an accident that most magical items that grant high-level spells require attunement by a spellcaster. Otherwise, those magical effects that high-level spellcasters just get to have are locked behind Legendary items, some of which the martial is wholly incapable of using anyway.

The most a martial character can consistently and within reason get away with is having access to 5th level spells via a Ring of Spell Storing. This still requires that the martial ask his spellcaster buddies to cast the magic for him. Otherwise, universally usable magic items that replicate spells almost always stop at 4th level, excluding Legendary and Artifact-level items.

Obviously, it's ridiculous to argue that a spellcaster is expected to always be prepared with Plane Shift in the event that they're transported against their will into an alternate plane. This in itself isn't a problem though, as any Archmage worth his salt has Magnificient Mansion (or Tiny Hut, for the frugal or less well off Wizards) prepared so that he can take a rest and prepare Plane Shift for his escape.

honestly I prepare magnificent mansion when I can(unless another caster in the party does)

[MaxWilson]

Casters also get overrated, as players get drunk on their abilities.

"What does a martial gain of equal value" is a question that implies the caster got something of value.

... in reality - if the party actually needed a teleport - they'd get one provided to them. No DM sets up a story that goes. "Oh, wait, you guys don't have teleport? I guess the quest ends here, and I'll just chuck 3 days worth of preperation in the bin ... and, oh, yeah, the next 3 sessions you guys should totally show up, but I won't let you do anything and I won't let you go on a different adventure"
It doesn't make sense. Not only can the wizard player be ill that session, (s)he could simply not have the teleport spell.

As there is no value in getting something you don't really need, there's also no need for meleers to get big compensation for it.

but ... wow ... it's an PC sacrificng a spellslot for it, opposite to an NPC doing it ... so I guess we should al fall on our knees. Give me a wizard who knows the value of a fireball, hold person or banishment spell over one who teleports ANY day of the week, and twice on gamenight.

The value of Teleport lies in using it proactively, not reactively, especially if your DM is not micromanaging your story on a scene-by-scene basis. E.g. if the DM sets up a bad guy who's doing something awful like enslaving your planet with werewolves from outer space, a fighter-only party might have no real choice but to go to ground and use guerilla tactics to keep certain bastions free of werewolves until Plot Hook comes along later so they get a shot at destroying the werewolf space fleet. They might have a few more options than that, but the point is that they don't have the option of going off-script and collecting the nastiest monsters they can find (is there a Purple Worm stomping grounds anywhere on the map? any ancient tombs filled with Mummy Lords and other evil undead?) and Teleporting themselves and e.g. a Polymorphed chicken (actually a Purple Worm, which will turn back into a chicken at an opportune moment) and a Mummy Lord (Necromancer's Command Undead) and a couple of storm giants or silver dragons or whatever allies they were able to scrape up, all onto the bad guy's command deck in a decapitation strike (after scrying ahead to make sure conditions look favorable today).

If spellcasters don't look powerful to you, it might be because of the style of campaign you're running. If you just go where the DM tells you to go and roll attacks when the DM tells you combat has started, then no, spellcasters aren't particularly powerful--no one at your table is powerful.

[ProsecutorGodot]

tl;dr- counter to what a lot of optimizers often say about magical types being the most versatile and having wider options in 5E, in my experience under real playing conditions, it's actually the opposite. Mundanes tend to be more versatile and often engage the game world using creative actions, while mages tend to hoard their resources to be exerted at a strategic moment of maximum leverage rather than using resources over an adventure to circumvent smaller obstacles. But again, YMMV.
You've made a very good point, wherein my use of versatile to describe spellcasters might not have been clear on how I meant it.

Speaking only for myself here, when I describe spellcasters as "more versatile" than martials, I mean it mostly in terms of what roles they can fill and what they're capable of long term. A martial is fairly limited in scope, with the usual combat actions as well as the few unique abilities they get like Action Surge for Fighter and Rage for Barbarian.

Spellcasters, however, have a plethora of options in front of them from the moment they begin selecting spells. They can focus on a certain type of gameplay or generalize with an equal chance of being effective. Wizards specifically can adapt to what they expect their day to be like with the largest selection of spells.

Again, I feel the need to point out that a spellcaster is not expected to be perfectly prepared, just that they have more opportunities to prepare for a specific scenario than a martial does.

This is just as much of a strength for Martial characters as it is a weakness for Spellcasters though. Being caught unprepared as a spellcaster runs the risk of putting you at a severe disadvantage, however, the martial is much more reliable in this case.

If I had to sum it up with this in mind, Spellcasters are versatile and Martials are reliable. You can always count on a Fighter to be at his full potential at a moments notice, while a Wizard could be caught on a bad day where he'd prepared nothing but his essentials (Fireball*, Mage Armor) and utility spells (Fly, Floating Disk, Phantom Steed etc) expecting a day of travel.
*I'm aware that Fireball seems a bit excessive, but it's not going to win every fight

[PhoenixPhyre]

My problem with the "just take a day and prepare" is that by taking a day you're completely removing any knowledge you had of what the opposition is, if the DM's actually portraying a dynamic world. Especially since most of the information-gathering tools wizards had in 3e were removed or nerfed into the ground. So you actually have to go in person, meaning that they know you're coming and can prepare for you. Scrying is limited (and high level). Divination and the likes just aren't on the wizard spell list anymore.

Wizards get:
* Detect Thoughts (very short range and duration)
* Clairvoyance (medium range, but you have to know the target location)
* Arcane Eye (ditto, although if you're willing to spend the time you can move it as long as you have a path...30' per round)
* Locate Creature
* Contact Other Plane (save or lose a day, 5 questions that are answered with 1 word. Good luck!)
* Legend Lore (have to know a lot to use it)
* Scrying (nerfed heavily)
* and that's all, other than wish to emulate the better divinations which are mostly cleric spells.

So how are you predicting what you'll need? And where did you pick up all those scrolls to scribe, since there isn't a magic item economy any more?

[qube]

I'm not claiming that they'll have the spells prepared, I'm claiming that if a Wizard levels up with the goal to learn Teleport, they will learn Teleport, or Plane Shift, or Meteor Swarm etc etc. If your Fighter sets out with the goal of acquiring a Voyager Staff so that he can Teleport, or a Staff of the Magi in hopes to cast powerful magic he's going to have to not only find the Staff but also a spellcaster to use it.And that's a horrible argument.

Loot is random, but a DM who doesn't give a hoot about his player's goals ... then sorry mate - the problem isn't the character; but the DM.

If you want to argue a bad DM, lets see how meteor swarm fairs against monsters that always counterspell it, unless the encounter is healed in an antimagic cave, obviously.




Otherwise, universally usable magic items that replicate spells almost always stop at 4th level, excluding Legendary and Artifact-level items.I was gonna check this... it took me aprox 3 seconds.

The first page of the magic items

amulet of the planes.
very rare
plane shift (7th level spell)
Anyone can use it.

.... oh, and it's at will.

[ProsecutorGodot]

And that's a horrible argument.

Loot is random, but a DM who doesn't give a hoot about his player's goals ... then sorry mate - the problem isn't the character; but the DM.

If you want to argue a bad DM, lets see how meteor swarm fairs against monsters that always counterspell it, unless the encounter is healed in an antimagic cave, obviously.
I don't see how it's the DM's fault that those items are restricted to spellcasters. In fact, the loot being random is kind of counter productive towards achieving player goals. We use the Xanathar's Guide buying rules at my table, our martials are very happy.

I'm really not trying to argue that spellcasters sit on a lofty throne high above the martial peasants, just that they're given more tools to shine more frequently and more brightly than a martial is. They can be downright terrible in some cases though, whereas a martial is almost always at full combat effectiveness. Preperation is just as much of a weakness for a spellcaster, if they don't prepare well they're going to be standing awkwardly close to their beefcake barbarian.


I was gonna check this... it took me aprox 3 seconds.

The first page of the magic items

amulet of the planes.
very rare
plane shift (7th level spell)
Anyone can use it.

.... oh, and it's at will.
Which is why I said almost always. I was very careful in that.

I'd also be careful with an Amulet of the Planes. Martials making a flat intelligence check don't have a very good chance of successfully using the item. Even 20 int Wizards only have a 50% chance of using the item successfully.

[noob]

And arguably the amulet of planes is an item very few gms want to let in the hands of players because it makes it way harder to have threatening encounters(by opposition to delaying encounters) when you need to use dimensional anchor or grappling or splitting on the characters first.(it becomes a 75% chance of success if you gain advantage one way or another and have 20 int(luck can do that))

[PhoenixPhyre]

And arguably the amulet of planes is an item very few gms want to let in the hands of players because it makes it way harder to have threatening encounters(by opposition to delaying encounters) when you need to use dimensional anchor or grappling or splitting on the characters first.(it becomes a 75% chance of success if you gain advantage one way or another and have 20 int(luck can do that))

But Planeshift at will is a great "oh crap" TPK-prevention tool...but using it means you lost. Because unless you have a permanent teleportation circle close to the quest area, you're not getting back.

Threat should come more from not being able to achieve your goals (because you had to skedaddle), not from sheer threat of death. Oh, and the amulet doesn't do much for your buddies, because the range of planeshift is touch.

[CorporateSlave]

Having read through this, I think a lot of the dispute is coming from each person framing their argument differently. "More powerful" "Supreme" "Better" etc...all clearly meaning different things to different people.

Sure wizards can cast all kinds of crazy spells with various effects. So that makes them "more powerful"? Depends what you mean by "more powerful." Does limited resource massive single effects = power to you? Does reliable moderate effectiveness with little to no resource use = power? Does only the wizard get to be called "powerful" because they can generate electrical power via lighting bolt spells? Generally, arguments seem to be made based on what a given person defines as powerful, and ignore or reframe someone else's definition. Does a fighter only count if you calculate his damage potential without any magical items (even simply + to hit/weapons)? Do we only count damage potential, or do we need to take everything else into account? Either way, why? Another way to think about it, nobody makes an analogy that doesn't perfectly illustrate their argument do they?

I never played 3.5e, but from what I've heard about it I think Unoriginal's point is that in that edition, casters effectively did everything and there was barely a point to a mundane martial character, as they were out-shined in every way by casters 99.99% of the time, including in all the things that mundane fighters were supposed to be "best" at. In 5e, there's less of that, and a well played and even semi-optimized martial character can often be just as effective as casters can be.

In my personal 5e experience, I can tell you I prefer "mundane" classes over spell casters, as the limitations of long rest spell slots drive me NUTS. Not to mention when the enemy makes the saving throw and my spell does nothing. Not even to mention Counterspell. But that's not to say I haven't found ways to apply magic effects to save a party in ways no mundane fighter possibly could have.

But in neither case am I going to narrow focus an argument down to some limited subjective definition then go one endlessly about how wrong everyone else is.

So to the OP, are spell caster kinda overrated? Well, I guess that depends who is doing the rating, and how they are rating them! I haven't witnessed in person anyone talking about how weak martial characters are compared to spell casters, I've seen plenty of players who prefer one type over the other for various reasons, and some who bounce back and forth, seemingly favoring neither. And then of course there are the martial classes that can cast limited spells...in any case, I don't personally think they are overrated, but I think the power balance is as you have found it in your games: balanced enough to make all sorts of classes fun and effective, spell caster or not.

[MaxWilson]

My problem with the "just take a day and prepare" is that by taking a day you're completely removing any knowledge you had of what the opposition is, if the DM's actually portraying a dynamic world. Especially since most of the information-gathering tools wizards had in 3e were removed or nerfed into the ground. So you actually have to go in person, meaning that they know you're coming and can prepare for you. Scrying is limited (and high level). Divination and the likes just aren't on the wizard spell list anymore.

Wizards get:
* Detect Thoughts (very short range and duration)
* Clairvoyance (medium range, but you have to know the target location)
* Arcane Eye (ditto, although if you're willing to spend the time you can move it as long as you have a path...30' per round)
* Locate Creature
* Contact Other Plane (save or lose a day, 5 questions that are answered with 1 word. Good luck!)
* Legend Lore (have to know a lot to use it)
* Scrying (nerfed heavily)
* and that's all, other than wish to emulate the better divinations which are mostly cleric spells.

Also Project Image, Polymorph, Find Familiar, Invisibility, Simulacrum, Disguise Self, Teleport, Dimension Door, Suggestion, and Seeming, all of which have uses for infiltration and recon. Scrying is better than you seem to give it credit for, too. It's almost impossible for an enemy to block dedicated Scrying over the long term--they'd have to eliminate all their flunkies and never hang out with anyone who doesn't have sky-high Wisdom saves.

Does this mean a wizard will always be perfectly prepared? Of course not. No one said it did. But a wizard gets better at dealing with a threat given a week to scope it out first, which incidentally is why wizards make great patrons for the PCs, because as a DM I am always trying to get more information into the players' hands, because information is a prerequisite to meaningful play. The hypothetical 9th level Diviner who is the Court Wizard tells the PCs, "We cannot hope to defeat the main enemy army when they attack tomorrow but I've been scrying and we may have an opportunity--most of the army is in the field and their HQ defenses are currently weak. We think you might be able to sneak in on Pegasus-back and launch a decapitation strike. Here's a map of the enemy camp and a list of some monsters I've seen within it. I'll do my best to monitor the situation by my visions [i.e. Portent] but no guarantees unless you shoot me a Sending beforehand. Good luck, our fate is in your hands."

[PhoenixPhyre]

Also Project Image, Polymorph, Find Familiar, Invisibility, Simulacrum, Disguise Self, Teleport, Dimension Door, Suggestion, and Seeming, all of which have uses for infiltration and recon. Scrying is better than you seem to give it credit for, too. It's almost impossible for an enemy to block dedicated Scrying over the long term--they'd have to eliminate all their flunkies and never hang out with anyone who doesn't have sky-high Wisdom saves.

Does this mean a wizard will always be perfectly prepared? Of course not. No one said it did. But a wizard gets better at dealing with a threat given a week to scope it out first, which incidentally is why wizards make great patrons for the PCs, because as a DM I am always trying to get more information into the players' hands, because information is a prerequisite to meaningful play. The hypothetical 9th level Diviner who is the Court Wizard tells the PCs, "We cannot hope to defeat the main enemy army when they attack tomorrow but I've been scrying and we may have an opportunity--most of the army is in the field and their HQ defenses are currently weak. We think you might be able to sneak in on Pegasus-back and launch a decapitation strike. Here's a map of the enemy camp and a list of some monsters I've seen within it. I'll do my best to monitor the situation by my visions [i.e. Portent] but no guarantees unless you shoot me a Sending beforehand. Good luck, our fate is in your hands."

Most of those are done better by non-magic (infiltration without face capabilities and stealth is...bad) or don't really help except with the very general. Unless you're really high level, you only get 1-2 scryings per day, and unless you know the people intimately and have stuff from them, your scrying is going to fail routinely. And nondetection is much cheaper than scrying. And you get 10 minutes per casting at best. Hope you picked a) the right person and b) the right 10 minute interval. But more than anything, the knowledge barrier makes scrying as a major tactic quite impractical. And it only works at all if you know who you're up against. And is very high level tactic at best.

As for familiars, warlocks and druids do it better. One can have invisible, intelligent familiars that can share senses, the other can be that animal. Polymorph doesn't work for scouting, since you don't retain your own intelligence or most of your mental capabilities (and so can't really follow detailed plans or focus well on things like passwords).

And NPC capabilities are completely divorced from PC capabilities. By design. So they can just do that regardless. Or if you're working for a nation-state, they have conventional spies that can relay the same information, except much more detailed and harder to spoof.

And more importantly than all of these--things change. Yes, you scried at the beginning of the week. But by the time you get there, a lot of that will have changed. And heaven help you if someone detected your scrying--then you're being filled full of disinformation.

[guachi]

My experience at my table is that casters aren't great at dealing with powerful opponents by themselves. Martial characters aren't great at dealing with masses of opponents but are great at dealing with powerful opponents. Spellcasters are great at setting the martials up to deal with the powerful opponents.

This is probably the most succinct summary of 5e. It's basically my experience, as well.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Most of those are done better by non-magic (infiltration without face capabilities and stealth is...bad) or don't really help except with the very general. Unless you're really high level, you only get 1-2 scryings per day, and unless you know the people intimately and have stuff from them, your scrying is going to fail routinely. And nondetection is much cheaper than scrying. And you get 10 minutes per casting at best. Hope you picked a) the right person and b) the right 10 minute interval. But more than anything, the knowledge barrier makes scrying as a major tactic quite impractical. And it only works at all if you know who you're up against. And is very high level tactic at best.

As for familiars, warlocks and druids do it better. One can have invisible, intelligent familiars that can share senses, the other can be that animal. Polymorph doesn't work for scouting, since you don't retain your own intelligence or most of your mental capabilities (and so can't really follow detailed plans or focus well on things like passwords).

And NPC capabilities are completely divorced from PC capabilities. By design. So they can just do that regardless. Or if you're working for a nation-state, they have conventional spies that can relay the same information, except much more detailed and harder to spoof.

And more importantly than all of these--things change. Yes, you scried at the beginning of the week. But by the time you get there, a lot of that will have changed. And heaven help you if someone detected your scrying--then you're being filled full of disinformation.

So what I'm getting from this is that you agree that spellcasters (we're not talking only about Wizards here) are able to gather intelligence well and martials can only benefit from the assistance of a spellcaster?

Also, keep in mind that scrying on a location is a viable tactic only requiring that you have seen the location before. No save involved. Observe an enemy camp through your familiar (or visit it personally while invisible, observe it from a vantage point where your position can't be revealed)

Nondetection can't obscure the entire camp from being scryed upon, at least not without significant investment (25gp worth of diamond dust for every 10ft netting 8 hours of protection). There's also nothing stopping you from scrying on the location repeatedly to keep your information as up to date as you can.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So what I'm getting from this is that you agree that spellcasters (we're not talking only about Wizards here) are able to gather intelligence well and martials can only benefit from the assistance of a spellcaster?

Also, keep in mind that scrying on a location is a viable tactic only requiring that you have seen the location before. No save involved. Observe an enemy camp through your familiar (or visit it personally while invisible, observe it from a vantage point where your position can't be revealed)

Nondetection can't obscure the entire camp from being scryed upon, at least not without significant investment (25gp worth of diamond dust for every 10ft netting 8 hours of protection). There's also nothing stopping you from scrying on the location repeatedly to keep your information as up to date as you can.

Martials and spellcasters working together can do much more than either alone. And that's the way it should be.

Against slow moving, precisely known foes (or armies), scrying is good for information gathering. For knowing what the monsters in the next area are like, or against vague or fast moving threats, not so much. And in my experience, the second are much more common for adventures.

[NaughtyTiger]

I am in the casters are superior camp.

Casters can overcome a bad guys elemental resistance/immunity. perform regular AoE, affect high AC targets, bring the unconscious back to fighting status in combat, buff the party, smite a bad guy, escape restraints, shut down entire encounters in 1 round, and they do most of this at range.

Out of combat, they can walk through walls and oceans, gather intel like crazy.

Martials can deal damage, glorious damage (i guesstimated 120 max per round not average). and take damage, glorious damage (200 max per combat assuming high AC).

Few tables that I play at have 0 casters.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Martials and spellcasters working together can do much more than either alone. And that's the way it should be.

Against slow moving, precisely known foes (or armies), scrying is good for information gathering. For knowing what the monsters in the next area are like, or against vague or fast moving threats, not so much. And in my experience, the second are much more common for adventures.
I definitely agree that at the first point a spellcaster gets access to scrying it might not be looked at as a must have, in the higher tiers (roughly 13-20, and I'm fully aware that these play tiers are not played often) you start facing ancient enemies posing a threat, anywhere from nationwide to planar. You might also be tasked with finding an artifact of incredible power with little to no leads to go on other than a completely trustworthy assurance that it does exist.

It's at that point that Cleric's start praying for guidance, Wizards start cracking open ancient tomes, Rogues sneak into forbidden or locked away locations for even a faint clue and Fighter's start performing great feats to gain the favor of those in power. All to find that thread to pull on. It's situations like this where Divination magic shines. The long term. Unravel enough thread and you find a name, a place or an event to work with.

But again, that sort of campaign is uncommon just like you say because many adventurers never make it to that tier of play. I don't think this discounts the potential value of these spells.

As for published adventurers, Storm King's Thunder could be largely upended with a savvy enough diviner. I imagine a diviner would be similarly appreciated in Rise of Tiamat, although the campaign I'd been a part of in HotDQ did not pan out far enough for me to know for sure.

[Dimers]

Spellcasters are kinda overrated -- kinda. They're no better in combat than an equivalently optimized mundane. To prep a caster well, you need knowledge of the system, the game world and the GM's mind. To use that preparation well, you need real-life social ability and broad imagination. To benefit more from each spell slot, you need your party's agreement. Within those limitations, they're friggin' amazing. In practice, though, casters are no better than noncasters, and sometimes worse.

I don't play casters well because I rarely grok the gameworld or GM, I don't have a strong ability to persuade people IRL, and I don't spend effort getting other players to work with my ideas. But I recognize that magic can be extremely useful/powerful when the right person does it.

[Friv]

My general 5E rule is as follows: Two wizards are going to be better at solving campaigns than two fighters will, but not as good as a team of one wizard and one fighter.

[qube]

Which is why I said almost always. I was very careful in that.:smallsmile: No problem, We skip the letter A.
:smallredface: AND the letter B (bowl of commanding water elemental, braziers of commaning fire)
:smallsigh: AND the letter C (candle of invokation, Censer of controlling air elementals, cube of force (variantion on forcecage))
:smallfrown: AND the letter D (daern's instant fortress as 10d10 area damage spell)
:smalleek: AND the letter E (efreeti bottle (~25% chance on 3 wishes), elemental gem)
...

so ... err ... :smallconfused:

[Waterdeep Merch]

A campaign without martials tends to end up in dangerous circumstances a lot due to their low durability and trouble keeping their DPR high during combat intensive days.

A campaign without casters tends to end up in dangerous circumstances a lot due to needing to risk life and limb often for things that spells could easily bypass.

If your campaigns don't have a lot of fights, you won't miss martials much at all.

The same can't really be said of casters.

I'd say that makes your average caster slightly more valuable overall, but I wouldn't go so far as to say their oranges make better apple juice than a martial's apples just because orange juice is more universally appealing.

[qube]

If your campaigns don't have a lot of fights, you won't miss martials much at all.

The same can't really be said of casters.... until you realise that the "my minimum persuasion check is 24" lvl 11 rogue is martial, not caster. :smalltongue:

[ProsecutorGodot]

:smallsmile: No problem, We skip the letter A.
:smallredface: AND the letter B (bowl of commanding water elemental, braziers of commaning fire)
:smallsigh: AND the letter C (candle of invokation, Censer of controlling air elementals, cube of force (variantion on forcecage))
:smallfrown: AND the letter D (daern's instant fortress as 10d10 area damage spell)
:smalleek: AND the letter E (efreeti bottle (~25% chance on 3 wishes), elemental gem)
...

so ... err ... :smallconfused:

You're listing exceedingly rare items (and others that have significant drawbacks) that may or may not appear in the game as a suitable replacement for a spellcasters ability to choose to know or prepare a spell from their list and cast it, no questions asked.

It's just a bit disingenuous if you ask me. It's pretty clear that 4th level is a cutoff for magic items to grant on-demand spell-like effects (of which Daern's instant fortress is not, while we're on this topic) and there are very rare (pun intended) exceptions of magic items granting high-level magic at a risk or limitation.

Amulet of Planes has a good chance of scattering the nearby 15ft around you into several planes. Candle of Invocation is completely nonfunctional if your alignment doesn't match unless you choose to immediately cast Gate with it, destroying the item. An item that imitates Conjure Elemental carries its own risks, which I'm sure you're aware of.

So to be clear, casters can safely and regularly cast high-level magic and they are guaranteed to be capable of casting something of that caliber at that point. Martials, meanwhile, are never guaranteed to be able to safely cast high-level magic. The highest level afforded to them through a magic item that is completely safe is 4th level, 5th level if your caster buddy fills a ring for you. The exceptions to this being Very Rare magic items that always come with a drawback and are unsafe, or Legendary/Artifact-level items that duplicate the effects of high-level magic perfectly. The issue is that they may or may not exist. If they do exist, you probably can't afford to just buy them on top of that many of them only function if you are already a spellcaster.

There is a deliberate cutoff point where martials have to take significant risks to even have a chance to use the same tiers of magic that a spellcaster gains naturally.

... until you realise that the "my minimum persuasion check is 24" lvl 11 rogue is martial, not caster. :smalltongue:
And a Bard with Glibness up has a minum persuasion roll of 32. Not that he really needs it. In fairness, by the point the rogue would have a respectable 28 minimum. He doesn't need that either.

That's even before the Bard inspires himself. A Bard could likely talk a dragon into donating his hoard to a nearby orphanage.

[Rukelnikov]

The supremacy is evident when one can resurrect his family after the orc attack, and the other can't.

Combat-wise there's no difference, they are all good at different angles of combat, and its fairly balanced that way.

If the DM wants the players to go to Plot City, and nothing (except combat) will happen until they reach there be it by teleport, land travel, ship or flying balloon, and once in there they find the king is murdered and players HAVE to revive the king be it with Raise Dead, capturing a genie, or making a deal with a shady cleric, then no, spellcasters arent superior because the world is fixed, and your impact on it is limited by what the DM wants you to do.

If on the other hand Plot City is under attack and you now have to decide either going there or sack the mummies' pyramid you've been gathering resources for, cast some spell to get a better idea of the situation (commune, contact other plane, scrying, sending, etc.), make an informed decision about it, and if you come back decide whether you wanna revive the king or not. Then spellcaster supremacy is pretty evident on the kind of impact they can have in the setting.

[Ignimortis]

Casters also get overrated, as players get drunk on their abilities.


"What does a martial gain of equal value" is a question that implies the caster got something of value.

... in reality - if the party actually needed a teleport - they'd get one provided to them. No DM sets up a story that goes. "Oh, wait, you guys don't have teleport? I guess the quest ends here, and I'll just chuck 3 days worth of preperation in the bin ... and, oh, yeah, the next 3 sessions you guys should totally show up, but I won't let you do anything and I won't let you go on a different adventure"
It doesn't make sense. Not only can the wizard player be ill that session, (s)he could simply not have the teleport spell.

As there is no value in getting something you don't really need, there's also no need for meleers to get big compensation for it.


Sure...as long as your campaign is fully plotted out and your DM doesn't stuff like "here's the problem according to the world's logic, how do you solve it with your resources?". If your DM gives out all the magic you're gonna need, then sure, you don't need a spellcaster at all. But that's your DM, and not how the system works. Besides, there are plenty of situations where Teleport and Scrying are not exactly necessary...but they save an immense amount of time and effort. If you're on a timer, Teleport changes the game dramatically, even if you could get by without it.

As people have noted above, the freer your plot and worldbuilding is, the more valuable spellcasting becomes. The only spellcaster you would need on a hexcrawl or in a megadungeon would be a Cleric to patch your brutes up. In a sandbox, being a martial is basically saying "let's hope that either I can get into a party with spellcasters, or my adventures remain exquisitely tailored to things I can actually do and won't include things I can't ever do".


... until you realise that the "my minimum persuasion check is 24" lvl 11 rogue is martial, not caster. :smalltongue:

So what? Your minimum roll of 23 (10+4x2+5 doesn't make a 24 AFAIK) doesn't do things it didn't do ten levels ago, it's just easier to get this number now. You still won't be telling the king what orders he's supposed to make, 5 seconds after meeting him for the first time, like Subtle Dominate Person does. You still won't be able to do anything outside of Persuasion purview, which is...trying to get people to agree with you. You get better results from Persuasion as a level 11 rogue who maxed CHA and put his proficiency into it, but you don't actually get NEW results. You're basically throwing Persuasion Fireballs around instead of Persuasion Firebolts in terms of effectiveness, maybe, but those aren't Persuasion Wishes, and not even Persuasion Meteor Swarms.

[mephnick]

If you use DnD for it's intended purpose (dungeons/adventure site exploration) casters lose a lot of their lustre, especially in 5e. Enclosed spaces, specific goals, wandering monsters and time constraints balance the classes better than anything else. All those "All-powerful" utility spells become downtime narrative devices. (Teleport). No more useful than masonry tools.

Also remember, Bless is useless if no one can channel it into a monster via weapon.

[ProsecutorGodot]

If you use DnD for it's intended purpose (dungeons/adventure site exploration) casters lose a lot of their lustre, especially in 5e. Enclosed spaces, specific goals, wandering monsters and time constraints balance the classes better than anything else. All those "All-powerful" utility spells become downtime narrative devices. (Teleport). No more useful than masonry tools.

Also remember, Bless is useless if no one can channel it into a monster via weapon.

While I understand (and agree) with your point, Bless is a terrible example.

It's equally as effective on spell attacks as it is for weapon attacks and 1d4 to Con saves is a concentration casters dream. The benefit is universal.

[Waazraath]

OH MY! The third most controversial topic, right after alignment and wether Xth edition sucks or not.


My general 5E rule is as follows: Two wizards are going to be better at solving campaigns than two fighters will, but not as good as a team of one wizard and one fighter.

My general experience is that a party with 2 wizards never makes it past level 2 without tpk, the game is just too lethal. But all my games start at level 1, if yours start later (lets say 5), that can be a very different story. Discussions like this have HUUUGE ymmv-factor, which partly explains the wildly different opinions.

For me though: hell yes, when we're talking about people arguing caster superiority, that is incorrect, and spellcasters are overrated. They work fine, 5e is over all nicely balanced. Martials tend to be more durable, do higher damage against single targets, and almost all have fun and unique abilities in addition to doing damage. Casters have good AoE, utility, buffing/debuffing... but are limited by 1) spells known / prepared, 2) the length of the adventuring day (the second being part of the ymmv-factor). But a lot also depends on the specific build.

Mostly, presumed caster superiority a relic of 3.x, as far as I can see. When I see people describe all those wonderful things casters can do, I can't help thinking... yeah, they could, 2 editions ago. But in 5e, a lot of options (information gathering, teleporting) isn't as reliable as it was, as has been argued by others.

And mind you: though caster superiority did exist in 3.x, it was more a theoretical thing than a practical: yeah, you could break the game in half as a caster, but you needed specific builds, or combo's a lot of system mastery, and the mindset that you were ok with breaking a game in half and overshadowing your friends and diminishing their fun. In practice, the folks who didn't optimize much, chose to play a wizard and picked some spells that sounded nice, had reasonably balanced characters. While in practice the hardcore optimizers optimized for the support role, or played caster-only niches, allowing martials to shine.

Going through this thread, I can't help noticing some stuff.
- the idea that casters aren't squishy, with the example of abjurer and moon druid given. That are two specific subclasses (out of dozens of caster sub classes), that do have good durability. That doen't mean that casters are durable.
- An example of 3.x druid superiority. Not so relevant.
- the idea that multiclassing works better for casters then for martials: eh, what? Even though lower level spells can be upcast, losing higher level spells known hurts (a lot, bar specific builds like tempest cleric / sorcerer). And martials work great with multi classing, almost all martials benefit greatly from for example 3 levels of battle master fighter. Only after level 4 it gets more difficult, due to extra attack not stacking.
- The unmatched versatility of casters: exagerated, as mentioned, due to lesser available spell slots, spells known / spells prepared, and not knowning beforehand what to face (weaker divinitions compared to earlier editions)
- etc. etc.

One last thing, thinking back to the same discussion that was often held on the 3.x fora: what is fascinating, is the way that somehow the forum hive mind tends to allow the interpretation of spells in the most generous way. "Because magic", I guess. 3.x was very RAW-focused. Having two possible interpretations of a spell, of combination of spells, and suggesting the weaker one was more logical, always let to immediate internet RAGE - for how dares one to nerf the all powerfull caster?! Let alone if one suggested that strict RAW reading of a spell broke the game and there was an obvious RAI that should be followed - that was sacriledge. The funny thing is: strict RAW reading of the game allowed (mundane) unlimited cash tricks from level 1 onwards, and with fixed prices for magic items, and the assumption that every item should be for sale (including those allowing wishes), allowed every game to end at the beginning of session 1 with the party completing the campaign and attaining godhood. Somehow, those tricks were not assumed to be allowed, but again, the most crazy interpretations from spells were.

Some of that spirit, we still see in 5e. Only look at discussions on 'who deceided what you summon, the caster or the DM'? It's bloody obvious, the spell says it's the DM, as does the sage advice, but still people argue very strongly in favour of the player. In some other active thread, somebody argues that the guidance cantrip gives +1d4 to initiative - like any party, or DM, is going to put up with stopping every 60 seconds to cast a spell. Etc.


tl;dr ; nope, casters aint superior, 5e balanced.

[Son of A Lich!]

The problem really comes down to "Spell casters use a limited resource, and are allowed to break power curve" as a balance element, but that is a bogus idea.

So, Merlin and Conan are being compared to one another. In a fight with a room of Goblins, Conan can take hits and kill off the goblins faster then they can kill him.

Merlin can cast fireball and kill all of them simultaneously, especially if they don't make their saves.

The argument goes that Merlin can only do this X amount of times in a day, while Conan swing all day.

When a door is locked, Conan can break it down with a strength check. Merlin can cast Knock.

When an Evil sorcerer casts Curse on Conan, Conan can kill the Sorcerer. Merlin can Dispel Curse.

Etc etc etc...

The problem comes from the fact that Merlin is consistently using his spell slots above the power curve while Conan is capped to the power curve. Conan can't choose to Crit a number of times per day, and even if he does a maneuver (Like Grappling or Shoving) it takes up his best option (The attack roll) to do so. Conan has to choose to lower his damage output which he is specialized in maximizing. So, while he is consistently at max, he can't exceed his maximum aside from rolling better (Which is outside of his control anyway).

Meanwhile, Merlin limited selection of spells that he can choose to cast or not cast will always be above the curve. If fighting a single target big bad guy, Merlin won't choose to use fireball unless the damage is particularly effective. Merlin looses nothing for having it prepared, but when you have a list of choices there will always be one that is superior to others. It may be a cantrip, but I'm going to remind you that Cantrips are always magical damage, and usually elemental - Which means that with Toll the Dead and Sacred Flame as cantrips, you will almost always have a damaging cantrip that is not resisted, and this comes online far far earlier then Martials get elemental or magical weapons. And your cantrips can't run out or be disarmed or taken from you.

If Merlin's spells are not of use, then Merlin choose spells that aren't widely universal. The common contenders and problem childs come out to play here - Illusions, Summons, BC, No save debuffs, Polymorph, etc. If Merlin did prepare the generalist spells, then summoning a demon or elemental is almost always useful. A well placed illusion can be a game changer. Splitting the enemy forces with a wall of force so you can handle them on your terms is devastating.

At the end of the day, Wizards have more opportunities to outshine the rest of the party and if they don't have an opportunity, they are still above average. This is a baked in issue with Vancian spell casting and it will continue to be one until Vancian spell casting is removed from D&D like the aliment charts...

I'm not going to hold my breath though.

[qube]

You're listing exceedingly rare items (and others that have significant drawbacks) that may or may not appear in the game as a suitable replacement for a spellcasters ability to choose to know or a prepare a spell from their list and cast it, no questions asked.


It's just a bit disingenuous if you ask me. It's pretty clear that 4th level is a cutoff for magic items to grant on-demand spell-like effectsdisingenuous? I'm alphabetically going through , not even all items, but the core list and check the items that don't fit your "almost never exists" criteria
5th level or higher
not legendairy or artifact
I'm sorry, if you think it's disingenuous for someone to check your claim, because, sorry, but no, it's absolutely NOT "pretty clear" there's 4th level cut-off for non-legenairy items, then you're wrong. The counter evidence - dispite you trying move the goalpost - is right there.
Yeah, these items are rare - they are not legendairy, nor artifact.
Yeah some of those items don't litterly duplicate a lvl5+ spell; they do simelar effect (there's no superiority in a 8d8 area damage over 10d10 area damage)

Sorry, but if you're talking about disingenuous - it's hardly an argument that martials can't duplicate high level magic, because there aren't many uncommon magical items that litterly duplicate lvl 5+ spells.

((oh, FYI, elemental gem. Uncommon. lvl 5 spell))

[Rukelnikov]

At the end of the day, Wizards have more opportunities to outshine the rest of the party and if they don't have an opportunity, they are still above average. This is a baked in issue with Vancian spell casting and it will continue to be one until Vancian spell casting is removed from D&D like the aliment charts...

Removing Vancian casting won't solve the biggest "problem" (ie: magic being magical), which is casters being able to do dozens of things martials can't.

[Waazraath]

The problem really comes down to "Spell casters use a limited resource, and are allowed to break power curve" as a balance element, but that is a bogus idea.

So, Merlin and Conan are being compared to one another. In a fight with a room of Goblins, Conan can take hits and kill off the goblins faster then they can kill him.

Merlin can cast fireball and kill all of them simultaneously, especially if they don't make their saves.

The argument goes that Merlin can only do this X amount of times in a day, while Conan swing all day.

When a door is locked, Conan can break it down with a strength check. Merlin can cast Knock.

When an Evil sorcerer casts Curse on Conan, Conan can kill the Sorcerer. Merlin can Dispel Curse.

Etc etc etc...


Except that time that the goblins won initiative, and they are all around Merlin. And that time that he didn't have the knock spell prepared. And that time that the evil sorcerer also had counterspell prepared. Etc., etc., etc.

This is exactly the white room analysis that exegarates caster power. Cause there isn't a real caster, with a limited spell selection, but a mystic caster that Knows A Lot of Spells, and there aren't real combat situations, but a conveniently grouped mass of enemies with few hp that all die in a single Fireball, there isn't a DM ruling how illusions effect monsters, there isn't a concentration check that Merlin fails (but enough time to cast summonings spells with a 1 minute duration), etc. Further, casters and martials are capped by the power curve. Just as Merlin has his high level spell, Conan has his berserker rage, both have rescourcs, both can choose when to perform above average.

[noob]

Well Conan is equally dead if the goblins wins initiative and could kill a valor bard in full armor in one turn.
In general 1000 kobolds does ranged attacks everyone dies is how swarm encounters happen in dnd 5e.

[Son of A Lich!]

Removing Vancian casting won't solve the biggest "problem" (ie: magic being magical), which is casters being able to do dozens of things martials can't.

Well, look at non-vancian spell casting systems and see for yourself.

In Mutants and Masterminds, for example, Mages can fly and astral project and so forth, but Weapon Masters are just as versatile. Being Magic based isn't a ticket to exceed the Guy at the Gym limitations because Magic isn't given a false limitation. All day, everyday, Doctor Magicker can summon potatoes from the elemental plane of Potatoes and the balance of the system is independent of his spell casting. He can't exceed Power Level limitations, even if he does take flaws like "Limited number of times per day", that just nets him more points to do other things with.

Further, the Weapon Master is perfectly justified in having magic items of his own choosing or design to allow him to do things that aren't 'natural'. Or it could be racial, or it could be a mutation, or whatever. There isn't a preset limitation on what he can and can't do based on the fact that it is at will.

The value of versatility is a good thing to sow in character creation and having the right tool for the right job is a good arrangement of ones character design. Trying to make Martials hit harder on average and then limit how hard they hit, and counter balancing it with spell slots that exceed capacities of those without spell slots will never be balanced. Wizards will always exceed their boundaries while Fighters will always press for a hard max.

[MaxWilson]

This is probably the most succinct summary of 5e. It's basically my experience, as well.

Great summary. I agree, with the caveat that the martials whom the casters enable to do damage don't have to be PCs.

[Waazraath]

Well Conan is equally dead if the goblins wins initiative and could kill a valor bard in full armor in one turn.
In general 1000 kobolds does ranged attacks everyone dies is how swarm encounters happen in dnd 5e.

Ah, but the problem is exactly that Schrodingers Wizard (Merlin) just turned into a valor bard in full armor :smallwink: That's not typical for a caster, nor is it typical for a valor bard to pick both Remove curse and Fireball with magical secrets, which this Merlin could cast.

Would you agree that there is a number of goblins that can ambush these two heroes, that is large enough to kill Merlin and too small to kill Conan? Especially once Conan is level 7, and can rage to avoid surprise (and have his half damage up and running)?

[ProsecutorGodot]

disingenuous? I'm alphabetically going through , not even all items, but the core list and check the items that don't fit your "almost never exists" criteria
5th level or higher
not legendairy or artifact
I'm sorry, if you think it's disingenuous for someone to check your claim, because, sorry, but no, it's absolutely NOT "pretty clear" there's 4th level cut-off for non-legenairy items, then you're wrong. The counter evidence - dispite you trying move the goalpost - is right there.
Yeah, these items are rare - they are not legendairy, nor artifact.
Yeah some of those items don't litterly duplicate a lvl5+ spell; they do simelar effect (there's no superiority in a 8d8 area damage over 10d10 area damage)

Sorry, but if you're talking about disingenuous - it's hardly an argument that martials can't duplicate high level magic, because there aren't many uncommon magical items that litterly duplicate lvl 5+ spells.

((oh, FYI, elemental gem. Uncommon. lvl 5 spell))

Whether intentionally or not, I can see that you're completely missing my point.

Let me remind you of the root comment of this discussion


What is "a Cubic Gate, a Rod of Resurrection, a Crystal Ball, and a Helm of Teleportation" Many Legendary and the rod requires attunement by a cleric, druid, paladin (or thief), but there's no particular reason level 13+ adventures should have no magic. Anyone can appreciate those items. Magic enables more types of adventures.

This is the exact kind of sentiment that makes me say yes, spellcasters are overrated. Casters are more self-contained or self-explained in the PHB. If there's some spell that's important in the game, it's never limited to just one spellcaster. There's always an item that copies it.

This is not a fair comparison. Martials do not have easy access to the tools that a caster does, it takes funds bordering on the levels of a dragon's hoard for a fighter to acquire one item that can safely and daily replicate a high level spell. Sure he can spend a more reasonable fortune to get an item capable of duplicating spells of a similar level, but those items come with a significant cost (aside from the coin that might have been involved).

As clear as I can say this to you: The highest level spell that a fighter can duplicate safely using a magic item that isn't Legendary/Artifact tier is 4th level. There are magic items that he can use to duplicate spells of any level, however they are either horribly unsafe (Amulet of the Planes, Amulet of the Black Skull) Reasonably unsafe (Efreeti Bottle, Conjure Elemental Item A,B,C and D, Helm of Brilliance) or locked behind a specific requirement for all or most of it's effects (Staff of Power, Candle of Invocation). He's not even guaranteed to recieve any of these items.

A spellcaster, however, upon reaching a level where they gain a spell slot of the appropriate level and has access to preparing or chooses to learn a spell, just does. They can do it now. A 13th level Wizard doesn't have to jump through a single hoop to learn Teleport, the most difficult thing he'll have to do is add it to his spell list. Boom Bam, for the rest of his days until he dies he can cast that spell using a spell slot no questions asked.

My entire point is that a martial character, even with magic items, is gated from doing magical things on the same level as spellcaster. Whether you believe me on what tier of magic that gate lies isn't important (you seem pretty set on 5th level, however I think that Conjure Elemental is an outlier on account of how dangerous it can be), the undeniable truth is that there is a gate.

EDIT: And to go even further with this, while those items are appealing to a Fighter they're equally as appealing to a Wizard. It doesn't do anything to close the gap between the archetypes. No matter how hard a Fighter tries to be as versatile as a spellcaster, he won't reach that peak. He's stuck with being constistent, which is good mechanically, however from a player feel standpoint it can be boring to watch your spellcaster bend reality to their whims while you take your third +2 longsword attack.

[Waazraath]

In Mutants and Masterminds, for example, Mages can fly and astral project and so forth, but Weapon Masters are just as versatile. Being Magic based isn't a ticket to exceed the Guy at the Gym limitations because Magic isn't given a false limitation.

But what has these Guy at the Gym limitations to do with 5e D&D? Where a Barbarian can fly in short bursts, see a mile far, buff the entire party with temporary HP, prevent damage, and cast ritual divinitions? (not all of them though - wouldn't want to be accusd of Schrodingers Barbarian). Where monks can have an unlimted amount of short range teleports or invisbilities while in darkness, or have access to the only save or die in the game? Where fighters have extra actions, give extra attacks, or should magical arrows? And where simple racial choices can give powerful options like flight?

[MrStabby]

Naturally it depends of the campaign.

High level? Well then we are looking at wish+simulacrum as the benchmark. No non-spellcater is going to break that. At high levels they are not overrated. Of course there are exceptions: bards don't get wish, unless they want to. Druids don't either but can be somewhat compensated by infinite wildshape. Clerics have to make do with getting a god to do their bidding instead.

Lower level? Ok here martials dominate. Spell slots are few and if you are level 2 every shield spell you cast severely limits what else you can do. One bad crit and a low HP PC won't even be making death saves. THe extra damage, resilience and endurance here does count. Not to say there are not some stand out effects here- sleep still wrecks encounters faster than a barbarian can and fairy fire is still (arguably) more effective at granting advantage than shoving someone prone.

It is the mid levels that are interesting. Here it really does depend on the campaign. If the campaign tends to be "you walk along the road and encounter monster x; now you keep walking and encounter Y; now it is monster Z..." then martials tend to be pretty strong. Single targets, combat focused, PCs not setting the pace all favours that. On the other hand if you have more generic problems - deal with this lich, protect this village, get to this mountain stronghold, destroy this siege engine where there is no requirement to leave a mile wide trail of corpses. If you don't have to climb the wizards tower killing everything in the way but can fly to the top and skip 4 encounters then fly has been more powerful than a lot of martial hacking and slashing, moreover - unless the DM is of the railroady type, you have skipped 4 encounters on the way up and lessened the burden - the 1 encounter left can then eat more resources.

The test I use, is to ask what proportion of the time casters are using cantrips/weapon attacks in combat. If casters don't have to resort to cantrips for a good 40%ish of the day then the campaign is not putting enough emphasis on endurance. Resources mean nothing if they can't run out.

[LudicSavant]

And how many time per day is a character in a lvl 20 group expected to be able to face a CR 13 encounter, compared to how many time they can be expected to face a horde of enemies wide enough for them to occupy all of a Meteor Swarm's AoE?

If you want to be comparing for the role of single target damage dealers, you should be comparing things that are actually trying to fill that role, like Hexvokers and Sorlocks. Meteor Swarm is filling a different role.

Not only is meteor swarm filling a different role, but casting Meteor Swarm is not representative of even a non-blaster build Wizard's nova damage combo (since they can have other things going off in that round, like having minions throwing Freezing Spheres).

[Unoriginal]

If you want to be comparing for the role of single target damage dealers, you should be comparing things that are actually trying to fill that role, like Hexvokers and Sorlocks. Meteor Swarm is filling a different role.

So are you saying that wizards cannot be good single targets damage dealers?

[LudicSavant]

So are you saying that wizards cannot be good single targets damage dealers?

Obviously I am not saying that, since Hexvokers are Wizards.

They don't use meteor swarm against single targets. And when they do want to AoE, Meteor Swarm is only part of their output for the round.

[Rukelnikov]

Well, look at non-vancian spell casting systems and see for yourself.

In Mutants and Masterminds, for example, Mages can fly and astral project and so forth, but Weapon Masters are just as versatile. Being Magic based isn't a ticket to exceed the Guy at the Gym limitations because Magic isn't given a false limitation. All day, everyday, Doctor Magicker can summon potatoes from the elemental plane of Potatoes and the balance of the system is independent of his spell casting. He can't exceed Power Level limitations, even if he does take flaws like "Limited number of times per day", that just nets him more points to do other things with.

You are literally comparing different games, I fail to see how that has anything to do with the matter at hand, but just to show the "other side", compare it with Mage the Ascension, not vancian casting, vastly more powerful than vamps or werewolves.


Further, the Weapon Master is perfectly justified in having magic items of his own choosing or design to allow him to do things that aren't 'natural'. Or it could be racial, or it could be a mutation, or whatever. There isn't a preset limitation on what he can and can't do based on the fact that it is at will.

Those are very different games, I dunno what that has to do with DnD.


The value of versatility is a good thing to sow in character creation and having the right tool for the right job is a good arrangement of ones character design. Trying to make Martials hit harder on average and then limit how hard they hit, and counter balancing it with spell slots that exceed capacities of those without spell slots will never be balanced. Wizards will always exceed their boundaries while Fighters will always press for a hard max.

Combat is not the problem, balance for at will if you want, the problem is the inherent versatility magic has, when at any given moment one can be in almost anypart of the multiverse in a minute or less, give sentience to plants, and repopulate a desolate world by turning pebbles into people and animals, the supremacy makes itself pretty evident.

[JoeJ]

And your cantrips can't run out or be disarmed or taken from you.

Maybe not, but your component pouch/spellcasting focus sure can.

[noob]

Ah, but the problem is exactly that Schrodingers Wizard (Merlin) just turned into a valor bard in full armor :smallwink: That's not typical for a caster, nor is it typical for a valor bard to pick both Remove curse and Fireball with magical secrets, which this Merlin could cast.

Would you agree that there is a number of goblins that can ambush these two heroes, that is large enough to kill Merlin and too small to kill Conan? Especially once Conan is level 7, and can rage to avoid surprise (and have his half damage up and running)?
Maybe your barbarian is as tanky as a valor bard in armor with a shield but not many non casting characters rival in tankyness with a valor bard(example rogues are less tanky and fighters as well because they have less armor because often they do not wear a shield unless going pam with a staff and shield)
Also I never said to play anything else than a valor bard in this thread.

[Waazraath]

Maybe your barbarian is as tanky as a valor bard in armor with a shield but not many non casting characters rival in tankyness with a valor bard (example rogues are less tanky and fighters as well because they have less armor because often they do not wear a shield unless going pam with a staff and shield)
Also I never said to play anything else than a valor bard in this thread.

But... you reply to my post (no #67). In which I reply to the comparision made between "merlin" and "conan". In which "merlin" is (most likely) a wizard, given spells known. You bring in the valor bard there, which is a bit beside the point, I'm trying to point out. Yes, valor bard in armor with shield can be quite tanky (though I think the only decent defensive self buff is improved invisibility at level 7?) - but the fact that some specific caster builds can be made tanky doesn't do anything to dispute the general fact that casters are more squishy than martials. And really doesn't do anything to dispute the fact that a wizard ambushed by goblins is in a helluvalot more trouble than a barbarian.

[MaxWilson]

The test I use, is to ask what proportion of the time casters are using cantrips/weapon attacks in combat. If casters don't have to resort to cantrips for a good 40%ish of the day then the campaign is not putting enough emphasis on endurance. Resources mean nothing if they can't run out.

Hahahaha, does it count if they are not making cantrip attacks because they are too busy Dodging and shouting for help?

That said, IME wizards in 5E are not actually squishy in practice, if they know what they are doing and roll halfway decent stats, because multiclassing solves AC so cheaply. AC 21 (+ Shield) Merlin is actually more likely than Conan to survive the goblin ambush.

But Conan + Merlin is even better, and can lead to the above-mentioned situation where Merlin is Dodging and hollering for help while Conan does the killing, because Merlin is low on SP from some prior challenge.

[Rukelnikov]

But... you reply to my post (no #67). In which I reply to the comparision made between "merlin" and "conan". In which "merlin" is (most likely) a wizard, given spells known. You bring in the valor bard there, which is a bit beside the point, I'm trying to point out. Yes, valor bard in armor with shield can be quite tanky (though I think the only decent defensive self buff is improved invisibility at level 7?) - but the fact that some specific caster builds can be made tanky doesn't do anything to dispute the general fact that casters are more squishy than martials. And really doesn't do anything to dispute the fact that a wizard ambushed by goblins is in a helluvalot more trouble than a barbarian.

Only if he forgot to cast his contingent Resilient Sphere that week.

[Waazraath]

Only if he forgot to cast his contingent Resilient Sphere that week.

Yes, exactly. Shrodingers Wizard always has his contiggent Resilient Sphere up!

[Unoriginal]

Yes, exactly. Shrodingers Wizard always has his contiggent Resilient Sphere up!

The Shrodinger Wizard is on the same level of reasoning and power as the Sorcerer King.

[Rukelnikov]

Yes, exactly. Shrodingers Wizard always has his contiggent Resilient Sphere up!

if he's alone and wandering in dangerous territory...

The thing is, Shrodingers Barbarian and Shrodingers Wizard are not the same type of particle, one reflects class choices which cannot be changed, the other spell memorization choices that can be changed at every long rest.

[Waazraath]

The Shrodinger Wizard is on the same level of reasoning and power as the Sorcerer King.

Yes, appearantly...


if he's alone and wandering in dangerous territory...

The thing is, Shrodingers Barbarian and Shrodingers Wizard are not the same type of particle, one reflects class choices which cannot be changed, the other spell memorization choices that can be changed at every long rest.

Yes, I'm aware how the game works, but thanks anyway. The thing is that in discussions like these, the 'casters are uber' crowd often assumes that the caster knowns all spells needed in [game situation given as an example], has the spells prepared needed for [game situation given as an example], hasn't yet cast the spells needed for [game situation given as an example], doesn't loose concentration on spells needed for [game situation given as an example], doesn't have said spells countered or dispelled... and sometimes even has the right subclass and contignency prepared.

You really don't see how this unspecified 'caster Merlin' that I replied to by now has turned in a specific at least level 11 wizard with exactly the right contignency prepared?

[Rukelnikov]

Yes, I'm aware how the game works, but thanks anyway. The thing is that in discussions like these, the 'casters are uber' crowd often assumes that the caster knowns all spells needed in [game situation given as an example], has the spells prepared needed for [game situation given as an example], hasn't yet cast the spells needed for [game situation given as an example], doesn't loose concentration on spells needed for [game situation given as an example], doesn't have said spells countered or dispelled... and sometimes even has the right subclass and contignency prepared.

Because that is EXACTLY the case, a wizard that goen on wandering blind, is a bad wizard, the wizard in his tower researching for a week or more before deciding what the best way to infiltrate the kings castle is the good wizard.


You really don't see how this unspecified 'caster Merlin' that I replied to by now has turned in a specific at least level 11 wizard with exactly the right contignency prepared?

Because I assume Merlin is a good wizard.

I'm not saying wizards cant be caught unawares, but as long as time is not a constraint they shouldn't be. As a matter of fact, I'd say aa wizard in his own tower is more vulnerable than one outside it because spell selection would be skewered towards non combat stuff. (unless the tower has heaps of magical or physical protections)

[Waazraath]

Because that is EXACTLY the case, a wizard that goen on wandering blind, is a bad wizard, the wizard in his tower researching for a week or more before deciding what the best way to infiltrate the kings castle is the good wizard.

Because I assume Merlin is a good wizard.

I'm not saying wizards cant be caught unawares, but as long as time is not a constraint they shouldn't be. As a matter of fact, I'd say aa wizard in his own tower is more vulnerable than one outside it because spell selection would be skewered towards non combat stuff. (unless the tower has heaps of magical or physical protections)

Well... I guess we are entering ymmv-territory here. Cause of course, in your campaigns wizards function under these conditions, where they always have the right spells prepared, known and even contignencied, they will be very powerful. But in 25+ years of D&D, I've never seen such a campaign. Information is often limited, even with divinition spells available, and time is often short. Specificly, in 5e I strongly wonder how this wizard would known exactly all the relevant information, given the limitations of divinitions in this editions. Looking at the adventures published, I don't know any that caters to such a playing style, so based on that, I think it is more exeption than rule.

[Son of A Lich!]

Except that time that the goblins won initiative, and they are all around Merlin.

Shield and mage armor, assuming I'm not a mountain dwarf or hobgoblin or any of the other ways of getting to a decent AC. 8 goblins have a turn to hit AC 21 (13[Mage Armor]+3[Dex]+5[Shield]) when I cast fog cloud on myself, and provoke AOs.


And that time that he didn't have the knock spell prepared.

Which implies that the party has a way to open locks, and it's not the best use of my spells prepared. The point of the argument is that Wizards, or full casters, can choose their spells to exceed the parties power curve.

I would like to ask if you have a rebuttal for this aside from "Not Prepared". Knock has caused some problems at my table in the past because the rogue felt overshadowed by the Bard who learned it.

Further, it's a ritual spell, so Merlin wouldn't need to prepare it.


And that time that the evil sorcerer also had counterspell prepared. Etc., etc., etc.

And most wizards also have counterspell. You only get one reaction a turn, so I can counter the counterspell. If they used a higher level spell slot then I would need for remove curse, then I'd probably just try recasting it and let them waste their spell slots on something trivial, but that depends on the white room we're in.


This is exactly the white room analysis that exegarates caster power. Cause there isn't a real caster, with a limited spell selection, but a mystic caster that Knows A Lot of Spells, and there aren't real combat situations, but a conveniently grouped mass of enemies with few hp that all die in a single Fireball, there isn't a DM ruling how illusions effect monsters, there isn't a concentration check that Merlin fails (but enough time to cast summonings spells with a 1 minute duration), etc. Further, casters and martials are capped by the power curve. Just as Merlin has his high level spell, Conan has his berserker rage, both have rescourcs, both can choose when to perform above average.

No, it's a simplified explanation of the problem for demonstrative purposes. Honestly, it'd be closer to call this Schrodinger's Dungeon not an example of Schrodinger's Wizard. Remove Curse, Knock and Fireball are all common selections on the list for the common problems faced by adventurers. I'm not talking about Animal Messenger or Leomund's Wallet Locating Charm or anything, for example.

I cannot communicate multiple billions of examples of wizards stepping up above their power curve without simplifying it down to common trends, which is what I did.

The difference between Conan and Merlin's resources is that Conan is ALWAYS going to want to use Rage to maximize his combat potential and his class is balanced by it. Merlin will always be able to simply not cast a spell that was prepared if it would be ineffective. Cloudkills not going to do much against a pack of harpies, but Chain Lightning will. If Chain Lighting is too high of a level to bother on harpies, he can choose which ever spell is appropriate - Like, Haste on Robin Hood or whatever.

Spell slots and Spells prepared are not a limitation on the performance of the caster.


Ah, but the problem is exactly that Schrodingers Wizard (Merlin) just turned into a valor bard in full armor :smallwink: That's not typical for a caster, nor is it typical for a valor bard to pick both Remove curse and Fireball with magical secrets, which this Merlin could cast.

Would you agree that there is a number of goblins that can ambush these two heroes, that is large enough to kill Merlin and too small to kill Conan? Especially once Conan is level 7, and can rage to avoid surprise (and have his half damage up and running)?

[Disclaimer: I never claimed that Merlin was a valor bard - I haven't changed anything observed of Merlin; he is an un-subclassed wizard.]

I would disagree that the Goblins are enough to kill Merlin or Conan. I was pointing out action economy efficiency, not surviveablity. I apologize if that wasn't clear.


But what has these Guy at the Gym limitations to do with 5e D&D? Where a Barbarian can fly in short bursts, see a mile far, buff the entire party with temporary HP, prevent damage, and cast ritual divinitions? (not all of them though - wouldn't want to be accusd of Schrodingers Barbarian). Where monks can have an unlimted amount of short range teleports or invisbilities while in darkness, or have access to the only save or die in the game? Where fighters have extra actions, give extra attacks, or should magical arrows? And where simple racial choices can give powerful options like flight?

I have never heard of Schrodinger's Barbarian. Because the builds are never complicated enough to be a challenge to design around. If your party is going into a Fire Giant fortress, you can be sure the party wizard and cleric will prep endure elements and cold spells. I can always add another 20 hp on a monster to give it staying power for a round without threatening tpk.

These utilities that you list are all exclusive to one another. A wizard of any stripe or subclass can swarm you with tentacles, summon demons, fey or elementals, or undead, or encase you in a wall of force with a cloudkill spell. Or fly. Or actually turn invisible. or kill you in a way that can't be resurrected.

Now, I agree that Guy at the Gym is a fallacy - but Aarokrocra were in 3.5 too. Rage Mages and arcane archers were a thing then too. The editions haven't absolved the problem of being able to exceed reality without a magical influence behind it, and wizards start under the premise that they exceed reality by default.


You are literally comparing different games, I fail to see how that has anything to do with the matter at hand, but just to show the "other side", compare it with Mage the Ascension, not vancian casting, vastly more powerful than vamps or werewolves.
...
Those are very different games, I dunno what that has to do with DnD.
...
Combat is not the problem, balance for at will if you want, the problem is the inherent versatility magic has, when at any given moment one can be in almost anypart of the multiverse in a minute or less, give sentience to plants, and repopulate a desolate world by turning pebbles into people and animals, the supremacy makes itself pretty evident.

Well of course I had to show case a different game, D&D has Vancian spell casting and I can't compare it to itself to show the difference it makes to not have vancian spell casting.

I went with M&M because it was built around 3.5's D20 system, I figured if we were looking at RPGs from a mechanical standpoint, looking at a mechanically similar system with a different outlook towards magic was a good starting point.

Now, the end statement here, you are talking about some pretty high end spell casting. Why shouldn't Martials be able to do mythic things? Myths of old are full of warriors who could cut mountains in half with a single of sweep of their sword or shoulder the weight of heaven without any magic. Sometimes divine blood, sure, but if Magic is synonymous with being able to do anything, then you need to expand your definition of Legendary and Epic. If you want the players to be normal, then you need to nerf Spell casting to the point of it not being fun.

As a DM, "Not being Fun" is against my personal philosophy. I just can't stand it when full casters are expected and allowed to break power curves, but the second a Monk asks if they can go Wuxia and use three ki points to fly even though it doesn't say they can in this book here, the vitriol of the very idea that they should be allowed to do cool things is just jaw dropping.

It's part of the reason I love M&M as much as I do. I think it's a better D&D then D&D is.

----

Now, as a full disclaimer here; I typically DM for teens and young adults who have never played D&D before but are well versed in Table Top war games and Magic the Gathering. My results may vary from the wide norm, but honestly, everyone's table is different.

[Rukelnikov]

Well... I guess we are entering ymmv-territory here. Cause of course, in your campaigns wizards function under these conditions, where they always have the right spells prepared, known and even contignencied, they will be very powerful. But in 25+ years of D&D, I've never seen such a campaign. Information is often limited, even with divinition spells available, and time is often short. Specificly, in 5e I strongly wonder how this wizard would known exactly all the relevant information, given the limitations of divinitions in this editions. Looking at the adventures published, I don't know any that caters to such a playing style, so based on that, I think it is more exeption than rule.

I haven't played any published adventure so IDK, but i'm used to DMing sandboxes, and playing somewhat sandboxy adventures, and for instance when entering dungeons and stuff casters are not that prepped, and perfectly on par with the rest of the team, save for certain things like sending, familiar, teleport, etc.

It's when there's no pressing matter and we are in effective "downtime" (which in our case is no downtime at all and its more, no one is bothering me right now and I can actually do what i want), when casters pull all their sptos and do stuff like "the 3 of us will mold earth for a month here to divert the course of the river" (actually happened) or, "I'm gonna go the plane of earth to barter for gemstones to see what gain I can get" (this had to be limited cuase it would have gotten out of hand). Both this situations were player controlled, the elemental plane one had many communes and contact other planes beforehand, and the cleric and wizard chose their spell selection accordingly.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Locked for review.