Rebalancing Spellcasting 5e

[Cikomyr2]

I was wondering. I think at high levels, spells are just too much of a game breaker to be spontaneously cast. I don't mind Wizards and Sorcerers and all to change the world in a major way by doing magic, but I think gameplay and thematic wise, high level spells should be less a half second effort.

What if a Sudden Death spell would take two Actions to cast. You can do your bonus action during rounds where you cast the spell. You can take your movement. But your action is dedicated in pre-casting your spell. You can hold an uncast spell for a while with Concentration checks. But you have to finish it to actually cast it. So it won't get out next round.

The idea is to.. Make high level (11+) spellcasters just a little slower to deploy their top lvl 6+ spells, which are kind of a game breaker a times.

I like that they are gamebreaker. It's high level magic. But I think the game might be more enjoyable and tactical if the casters had to dedicate 2+ rounds of action deploying their Big Cannons. Again, they have their bonus action and movement.

However, a Fighter/Caster could dedicate their Action Surge to do two casting actions jn the same round.

And i guess a sorcerer with Swift casting could replace one of the casting action for a Bonus action.

Whatcha think?

[Man_Over_Game]

I like it.

I'm a big proponent of nerfing how much magic scales, while also keeping low-level magic viable.

This would go a long way to see some value out of upcasting lower level spells.

You could adopt something akin to Pathfinder 2e's versatility in spells, where you sacrifice components of your turn to fuel additional effects.

For example, Delay = 3xSpell Level. Each turn you spend your Action attempting to cast a spell, reduce its Delay by your Spellcasting bonus. You can also spend all of your Speed during your turn , or spend your Bonus Action, to reduce its Delay by half of your Spellcasting Bonus (rounded up). When the spell's Delay is no higher than 0, you spend your spell slot to cast the spell. Otherwise, you'll need to use your Concentration to maintain your progress on that spell to reduce its Delay in a following turn.

With a spellcasting bonus max of +11, and an estimated minimum of +4, it'd take into account a wide variety of experiences for your casters, although it's a bit finicky and would require tracking Delay between each level. And I obviously haven't playtested it yet to see if it actually holds up. Yours might be better for the simplicity and the lack of need to track a Delay count.

[terodil]

I don't understand; would you tie it to the spell level or to the level of the spell slot used?

I'm not sure what problem exactly you are trying to solve. What are those 'game changers' you are talking about? I doubt it'd be helpful to make sweeping changes across the board to anything past lvl 5. Harm/Heal, Chain Lightning etc. hardly seem so out-of-whack with what a martial can do that it'd be fair to just double their cast time AND make them subject to concentration rules on top of everything else they already have to contend with to be effective (resource expenditure, SR, ST, attack roll, ...). To me it would seem to make more sense to tackle specific issues you may have with specific spells.

Also, making classes slower to play is a bad idea. If you think the damage output is too high, lower the damage dice or introduce a ceiling. Control spells too effective? Allow additional saves, cut their duration, or introduce a ceiling to max targets affected, if you must.

[MrStabby]

I dont think harm or heal are the best examples of high level spells where a slower casting time is needed. I would suggest that you look at something like forcecage.

High level spell but demonstrating you dont need wish levels for it to be a problem. Still being a spell that uses an action to effectively end a huge range of combats.

I think the rule is ok. It does tick a lot of boxes but doesn't impact a lot of spells like teleport that have a profound narrative impact beyond that which a fighter of a similar level could achieve.

On the other side of the coin, tying it in to something like spell points variants could encourage use of more low level spells but fewer games changing spells. Give something back that encourages things that make a game good but discouraging things that make it less good.

[Man_Over_Game]

I don't understand; would you tie it to the spell level or to the level of the spell slot used?

I'm not sure what problem exactly you are trying to solve. What are those 'game changers' you are talking about? I doubt it'd be helpful to make sweeping changes across the board to anything past lvl 5. Harm/Heal, Chain Lightning etc. hardly seem so out-of-whack with what a martial can do that it'd be fair to just double their cast time AND make them subject to concentration rules on top of everything else they already have to contend with to be effective (resource expenditure, SR, ST, attack roll, ...).

Well, I dunno about that.

At level 11, a single spell slot, at 6th level spent on your example of Chain Lightning, will afford that Wizard about 3-4 turns of a Fighter hacking away. That's without spending a single other spell slot.

Your example of Chain Lightning hits between 1-4 creatures. Assuming you don't ever cast it on a single target, but we put a bit of extra weight on the '2' (basically to emphasize that you're twice as likely to hit 2 than 3 or 4), that's x2.75 targets per casting.

It deals 10d8 Lightning damage, or 45 average damage per creature hit. It also halves on a miss, so assuming we're talking about a 60% hit chance, that's a 40.23 average damage per target.

With an average of x2.75 targets hit, we're looking at 110.6 damage per casting.

That's a level 6 spell, the most expensive it'd be is a level 11 character.

With a level 11 Fighter, dealing about 15 damage per hit and a ~75% hit chance, we're looking at an average of 11 damage per attack, 3 attacks per turn, and 3 more attacks in the first turn of each encounter.

So a Fighter will be dealing 66 damage on the first turn, followed by 33 damage for each turn beyond that.

Even if the Caster only spent the following turns casting Fire Bolt (3d10 + 75%= *12.375‬), it'd take the Fighter about 4 rounds to start dealing more damage than the Wizard's single level 6 spell slot spent.

Even if the Caster has to hypothetically spend all of his spell slots to keep up with the Fighter, he'd have 5 cantrips to use outside of combat. For a Fighter to gain that same level of contribution out of combat, he'd have to spend ~2 feats (based on the value of 2 Magic Initiate feats), which which will almost definitely impact their contribution in combat.

Besides the fact that Fighters live twice as long (3.5 HP vs. 5.5 HP, then accounting for the ~30% decreased hit chance against the Fighter), and a select few levels before level 6, I'm not seeing too many examples of scenarios where Fighters and other martials perform better than casters. Their most unique contribution that I've seen is that they can take more hits, which is pretty dang lackluster if you ask me.

They can pull their weight, but I think that's a reflection of how easy 5e is, not how effective martials are. A Bard with hardly any combat spells can pull their own weight in a combat encounter. We're not saying "martials aren't successful", we're saying "magic is more successful".

[SanguisAevum]

Whatcha think?

I think you’re wasting your time, 5e spell casting is balanced fine as it is.

[furby076]

I think its a lot of work for no gain and lots of pain. At high levels wizards has to deal with legendary saves, high saves and save or suck situations. It would also get boring for spellcaster to wait around (or run around trying to avoid being hit)

[Pex]

They only get one spell per level at those levels, and the bad guys might make the saving throw. Why take away their fun? I'm in a high level game now. Everyone is happy when the spellcaster casts his or her 6th or 7th level spell. We know it's a big deal. It's supposed to be a big deal. The encounter demands the big deal. It helps everyone. We all do our part and do not resent someone else having their big moment because what they do wins the day. Sometimes it's the sorcerer casting twin True Seeing. Sometimes it's the druid casting Fire Storm. Sometimes it's the cleric succeeding in calling for Divine Intervention. Sometimes it's the barbarian running up to the mindflayer hiding in an alcove to throw it into the middle of the corridor allowing the rest of the party to pummel it death when they otherwise couldn't.

Would you be playing fair? Do powerful monsters also take two rounds to do their thing? How many rounds does a beholder take to use its eye rays? How many rounds does a dragon take to unleash its breath weapon? How many rounds does it take a creature to use its Legendary Actions? How many rounds does the Monster's Lair take to do its effect?

You're adding frustration, not fun. Spellcasters are entitled to do their thing.

[Luccan]

They only get one spell per level at those levels, and the bad guys might make the saving throw. Why take away their fun? I'm in a high level game now. Everyone is happy when the spellcaster casts his or her 6th or 7th level spell. We know it's a big deal. It's supposed to be a big deal. The encounter demands the big deal. It helps everyone. We all do our part and do not resent someone else having their big moment because what they do wins the day. Sometimes it's the sorcerer casting twin True Seeing. Sometimes it's the druid casting Fire Storm. Sometimes it's the cleric succeeding in calling for Divine Intervention. Sometimes it's the barbarian running up to the mindflayer hiding in an alcove to throw it into the middle of the corridor allowing the rest of the party to pummel it death when they otherwise couldn't.

Would you be playing fair? Do powerful monsters also take two rounds to do their thing? How many rounds does a beholder take to use its eye rays? How many rounds does a dragon take to unleash its breath weapon? How many rounds does it take a creature to use its Legendary Actions? How many rounds does the Monster's Lair take to do its effect?

You're adding frustration, not fun. Spellcasters are entitled to do their thing.

Emphasis mine.

This is the big one to remember when trying to find balance between casters and martials, at least in an established system. Many spells are as much a boon to the party as a whole as they are to the caster.

[Misterwhisper]

Simple:

You can concentrate on a number of spells equal to half your proficiency bonus.

Casting any spell within melee weapon range of an enemy provokes Opportunity Attacks, unless it has subtle spell used on it.

[Luccan]

Simple:

You can concentrate on a number of spells equal to half your proficiency bonus.

Casting any spell within melee weapon range of an enemy provokes Opportunity Attacks, unless it has subtle spell used on it.

Uh, that first one is definitely a boost to spellcasters, particularly at low levels when they don't need to worry about these extended casting times. Normally you can only concentrate on one spell at a time.

[Rukelnikov]

They only get one spell per level at those levels, and the bad guys might make the saving throw. Why take away their fun? I'm in a high level game now. Everyone is happy when the spellcaster casts his or her 6th or 7th level spell. We know it's a big deal. It's supposed to be a big deal. The encounter demands the big deal. It helps everyone. We all do our part and do not resent someone else having their big moment because what they do wins the day. Sometimes it's the sorcerer casting twin True Seeing. Sometimes it's the druid casting Fire Storm. Sometimes it's the cleric succeeding in calling for Divine Intervention. Sometimes it's the barbarian running up to the mindflayer hiding in an alcove to throw it into the middle of the corridor allowing the rest of the party to pummel it death when they otherwise couldn't.

Would you be playing fair? Do powerful monsters also take two rounds to do their thing? How many rounds does a beholder take to use its eye rays? How many rounds does a dragon take to unleash its breath weapon? How many rounds does it take a creature to use its Legendary Actions? How many rounds does the Monster's Lair take to do its effect?

You're adding frustration, not fun. Spellcasters are entitled to do their thing.

Well said.

[MrStabby]

They only get one spell per level at those levels, and the bad guys might make the saving throw. Why take away their fun? I'm in a high level game now. Everyone is happy when the spellcaster casts his or her 6th or 7th level spell. We know it's a big deal. It's supposed to be a big deal. The encounter demands the big deal. It helps everyone. We all do our part and do not resent someone else having their big moment because what they do wins the day. Sometimes it's the sorcerer casting twin True Seeing. Sometimes it's the druid casting Fire Storm. Sometimes it's the cleric succeeding in calling for Divine Intervention. Sometimes it's the barbarian running up to the mindflayer hiding in an alcove to throw it into the middle of the corridor allowing the rest of the party to pummel it death when they otherwise couldn't.

Would you be playing fair? Do powerful monsters also take two rounds to do their thing? How many rounds does a beholder take to use its eye rays? How many rounds does a dragon take to unleash its breath weapon? How many rounds does it take a creature to use its Legendary Actions? How many rounds does the Monster's Lair take to do its effect?

You're adding frustration, not fun. Spellcasters are entitled to do their thing.

There is a fine line between this being appropriate and this being an inappropriate and monumentally selfish approach.

It is fine as long as a casters big thing does not diminish what another players big thing is. If another player's big thing is doing damage and meteor swarm overshadows that then one players big thing is spoiling the experience if someone else. If a players big thing is absorbing damage and a high level spell stops that damage then one player being inconsiderate spoils the fun of another player. If a player plays a ranger to guide the party accross the wilderness and that gets skipped through a teleport spell then that player doing their thing is taking away from the fun of someone else at the table.

Any analysis that only looks at that one player and what that player wants is bound to be flawed. Likewise an analysis that looks at the encounter that was, rather than the encounter that would be in the absence of high level spells is similarly problematic.

It isn't just winning or losing but ensuring that every player has a chance to shine during that process but also that they have a chance to shine at equally dramatic and narratively important points. Who ever is running the game needs to look after the fun of the whole table and not just one player.

[Trask]

I agree with the intent behind this rule, but I feel like requiring multiple actions to cast a single spell could lead to gameplay that is not so fun.

I do think that 6th level spells and above is where casters start to dominate so hard that it becomes a little ridiculous, but perhaps the solution is to be stricter on long rests and recovery than to make spellcasting itself harder.

[Cikomyr2]

I agree with the intent behind this rule, but I feel like requiring multiple actions to cast a single spell could lead to gameplay that is not so fun.

I do think that 6th level spells and above is where casters start to dominate so hard that it becomes a little ridiculous, but perhaps the solution is to be stricter on long rests and recovery than to make spellcasting itself harder.

Well, making spellcasting harder is the point of this thread.

The thing I was thinking too is that I feel villains who just pop Power Word kill are a bit cheap. Like, it would be nice if players had some idea of the massive spells that was gonna come their way, and had a beat to react to it.

[Misterwhisper]

Uh, that first one is definitely a boost to spellcasters, particularly at low levels when they don't need to worry about these extended casting times. Normally you can only concentrate on one spell at a time.

It would be level 9 before they can concentrate on 2 spells at once.

It is more to balance the threat of the second point, and to make it more dangerous.

[MrStabby]

Well, making spellcasting harder is the point of this thread.

The thing I was thinking too is that I feel villains who just pop Power Word kill are a bit cheap. Like, it would be nice if players had some idea of the massive spells that was gonna come their way, and had a beat to react to it.

The think I like is that it adds to the interplay between magic and mundane.

If someone throws a massive attack at you you can use shield or you might be invisible... there are lots of ways as a spellcaster to interact with that. What the game is missing is different ways for a warrior to interact to stop spell effects working - they are passive subjects to magic rather than it being an engaging back and forth. This at least adds some of that.

[Cikomyr2]

The think I like is that it adds to the interplay between magic and mundane.

If someone throws a massive attack at you you can use shield or you might be invisible... there are lots of ways as a spellcaster to interact with that. What the game is missing is different ways for a warrior to interact to stop spell effects working - they are passive subjects to magic rather than it being an engaging back and forth. This at least adds some of that.

"the enemy wizard starts casting.."
Wizard: I know what it is?
Dm: you detect a massive evocation spell coming up
Wizard: ****, take cover guys!
Fighter: I screen the cleric with my shield!

That sort of things. Or maybe the rogue goes for a desperate stabby stab stab to make the villain lose concentration.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Just don't play at higher levels.

It is better to ban a mechanic then make it hard to use.
Limit the max level is your game, ban full casters. Don't make it not enjoyable to use.

The fighter can use his action surge every fight after a short rest. A wizard can never use the 6 level spell more then ones a day(I am talking about level 11).

[MrStabby]

"the enemy wizard starts casting.."
Wizard: I know what it is?
Dm: you detect a massive evocation spell coming up
Wizard: ****, take cover guys!
Fighter: I screen the cleric with my shield!

That sort of things. Or maybe the rogue goes for a desperate stabby stab stab to make the villain lose concentration.

Exactly this kind of thing yes. This is what the game needs more of. Uses of reactions that can stop spells just as they stop weapon attacks.

[Cikomyr2]

Exactly this kind of thing yes. This is what the game needs more of. Uses of reactions that can stop spells just as they stop weapon attacks.

I was thinking. What if the pre-casting was used of bonus action for a few rounds. Like, level 9 spells is 2 rounds of bonus actions, and 1 round of action.

The high spellcaster can still cast low level spells with their actions during that time?

Thinking of master wizards preparing a massive meteor storm in their right hand, and a fireball with the left.

[Trask]

I was thinking. What if the pre-casting was used of bonus action for a few rounds. Like, level 9 spells is 2 rounds of bonus actions, and 1 round of action.

The high spellcaster can still cast low level spells with their actions during that time?

Thinking of master wizards preparing a massive meteor storm in their right hand, and a fireball with the left.

I like this one, it delays the spell but doesnt keep the caster from doing other things entirely.

[Ryuu Hayato]

I think lvl 9 spells should be gone. Wish and others are too much game breaking and martials don't have anything like that.

[MrStabby]

I was thinking. What if the pre-casting was used of bonus action for a few rounds. Like, level 9 spells is 2 rounds of bonus actions, and 1 round of action.

The high spellcaster can still cast low level spells with their actions during that time?

Thinking of master wizards preparing a massive meteor storm in their right hand, and a fireball with the left.

I like it, although maybe I wouldn't look to have a defined spell, but maybe a declared school and level. Give a bit of flexibility.

[JNAProductions]

I think lvl 9 spells should be gone. Wish and others are too much game breaking and martials don't have anything like that.

I was gonna do the numbers on Meteor Swarm versus a high-level martial, but I realized there's no point. The concept you're arguing is flawed from the start.

If you feel that magic gets cool stuff and martials don't, give martials cool stuff. Don't take away magic's coolness, add more awesome to the game for other people.

[MaxWilson]

I was gonna do the numbers on Meteor Swarm versus a high-level martial, but I realized there's no point. The concept you're arguing is flawed from the start.

If you feel that magic gets cool stuff and martials don't, give martials cool stuff. Don't take away magic's coolness, add more awesome to the game for other people.

Or run a nonmagical-Fighters-and-Rogues-only concept game.

[detro]

A quick and dirty solution is that when on a players turn they declare they are casting a spell, but the spell isn't actually cast until the initiative count of (original initiative - 2*spell level).
It's treated as pseudo concentration, whenever they receive damage between beginning and finishing casting the spell they must succeed a concentration check or fail to cast the spell that round.

So lets say Wilgaf the Vile with an initiative of 13 decides they want to cast a third level spell on their turn. Wilgaf begins the casting process and in the meantime any player with an initiative from 7 to 12 has the opportunity attempt an attack and disrupt the spell.
For an extra dynamic, it could be based on the original level of the spell. An upcast burning hands has less of a chance of being disrupted than a fireball, creating interesting tradeoffs.

[deljzc]

Isn't part of the problem we've gone away from D&D being a "resource management" game?

The ease of resting and recouping your high-end powers (almost for all classes) has eliminated almost any fear of spellcasters worrying about what is "aorund the next bend" and whether or not THIS is the hardest encounter the party will face. We have turned D&D into so much of a linear experience (battle, battle, battle, rest, battle, battle, rest, BOSS FIGHT) that much of the rollplaying and worry and tension that comes from managing a LONG adventure with limited resources is now gone.

That's okay. I understand the change. D&D plays more like a computer game now. Players like to battle with all their tricks and powers. It's fun.

But with that, it makes it hard to balance spellcasting at higher levels.

[Trask]

Isn't part of the problem we've gone away from D&D being a "resource management" game?

The ease of resting and recouping your high-end powers (almost for all classes) has eliminated almost any fear of spellcasters worrying about what is "aorund the next bend" and whether or not THIS is the hardest encounter the party will face. We have turned D&D into so much of a linear experience (battle, battle, battle, rest, battle, battle, rest, BOSS FIGHT) that much of the rollplaying and worry and tension that comes from managing a LONG adventure with limited resources is now gone.

That's okay. I understand the change. D&D plays more like a computer game now. Players like to battle with all their tricks and powers. It's fun.

But with that, it makes it hard to balance spellcasting at higher levels.

I do agree that the design intent of d&d 5e seems to trend towards a predictable, linear battle cycle (the "adventuring day") but I also think the game is flexible enough to not be played that way.

[Misterwhisper]

Isn't part of the problem we've gone away from D&D being a "resource management" game?

The ease of resting and recouping your high-end powers (almost for all classes) has eliminated almost any fear of spellcasters worrying about what is "aorund the next bend" and whether or not THIS is the hardest encounter the party will face. We have turned D&D into so much of a linear experience (battle, battle, battle, rest, battle, battle, rest, BOSS FIGHT) that much of the rollplaying and worry and tension that comes from managing a LONG adventure with limited resources is now gone.

That's okay. I understand the change. D&D plays more like a computer game now. Players like to battle with all their tricks and powers. It's fun.

But with that, it makes it hard to balance spellcasting at higher levels.

That is because dnd is not a resource management game.

The game is balanced to be that way from the character creation and mechanic standpoint but they did not actually build their modules on it, nor did they mandate or even specifically point out how many of each rest their should be.

The reason casters walk around like gods is that many dms throw in fights just to waste resources from casters but if they don’t take the bait and just cantrips things to death and let martials handle the minions, they just wait and nuke down the main threat in about two rounds.

Casters mandate when long rests are taken.
The dm either pushes it and kills them and the game dies or let’s them do it and they are gods.

Because of whack a mole healing and things like shield that spit in the face of blind accuracy, a clothie with crap con does not have to worry about things, just throw out spells and don’t care about defense. What is the worst that can happen? You get knocked down and the cleric/ranger/Druid spends a first level slot to get you back up and fighting.

I have never once seen a character die in 5e past level 2 unless it was a TPK.

Death saves are a moronic idea without negative HP looming over you.

This edition does not promote resource management, it promotes glass cannons and 10 min adventuring days.

If you are at level 8, playing a wizard with 12 con and have 3 hp left and a giant smashes you with a great club the size of a tree for 40 hp, you should outright be dead, not just unconscious and that heal for 6hp the cleric did should definitely not get you right back in the fight.

The power discrepancy is supposed to be mitigated because of the caster’s frailty and limited resources, but the. They let people cast in any armor they are trained in with no penalty or negative, removed opportunity attack for casting completely, made a feat to patch it but the feat is worthless against anyone with half a brain, made it almost impossible to outright kill a PC in one shot past level 2 or 3, and made a first level spell that gives you an ac bonus equivalent of a legendary magic shield that lasts a whole round, made feats optional, introduced new spells and broken backgrounds to give casters more and better options every book while martials got... nothing.

Also because feats are set up they way they are and are optional in the first place they never have to come up with new ones.

Every new spell, when it comes out is a new tool automatically given to casters as soon as they pick it when they level up or even just long rest.

The only way martials get something new is if it is available to everyone.

[Amechra]

The thing is? Shield would be perfectly fine if casters didn't have ready access to Constitution save proficiency or better armor proficiencies.

Theoretically, arcane casters have to split their stats between their casting stat, Constitution (for HP and concentration), and Dexterity (for AC and initiative). You're probably going to have a Dexterity of 12~14 for most of your career, so Mage Armor is going to give you a base AC of 14-15. Slapping Shield on top of that gets you to AC 19-20, which makes you roughly on par with a martial character at the cost of a low-level spell slot and your reaction. It's fairly obvious to me that this was what they thinking of when balancing the classes - you cast Shield to prevent losing concentration on your big spell, because your AC and Con save are generally poor.

The thing is, even when you factor in the fact that casters generally hit a point where they don't have any good uses for casting low-level spells other than casting Shield and other defensive spells, that's still fine, because it mirrors how people with "real" armor are going to generally improve their AC, due to finally affording stuff like full plate, maxing out their Dexterity, or just plain finding magical armor. By the time that Mr. Wizard effectively has access to their Shielded AC all day long, everyone else should have AC that's at about that same level.

The problem is that they made it way too easy to get access to actual armor, which lets Shield break bounded accuracy like a twig. They made it too easy to grab proficiency in Constitution saves, which means that casters aren't forced to split their stat increases between Dexterity and Constitution to be "comfortable" in combat. While being able to cast spells in any armor you're proficient in is certainly a problem, the real issue is that spells like Shield were written without taking that into account.



An even bigger problem, in my mind, is that spellcasters are designed to cater to multiple incompatible playstyles. They have to have tons of spell slots for the people who want to participate in fights by throwing around multiple Fireballs, while at the same time they're designed so that you can get away with only using one or two spell slots per fight so that you can use them for utility. There's also a really bad trend where spellcasters get spells that boil down to plot powers - there's no good reason why things like Clone or Wish need to be player-accessible.

Honestly, the Warlock is closer to how spellcasters should have been designed if the whole "save my spells for utility and the big fight, normally contribute with cantrips" playstyle was deliberate. Because that's the playstyle they're are more-or-less designed around - that's why they get those Invocations that give access to additional spells known that they can only use once per long rest, and why they get bonuses to Eldritch Blast that make it as strong as it is.

[Trask]

The thing is? Shield would be perfectly fine if casters didn't have ready access to Constitution save proficiency or better armor proficiencies.

Theoretically, arcane casters have to split their stats between their casting stat, Constitution (for HP and concentration), and Dexterity (for AC and initiative). You're probably going to have a Dexterity of 12~14 for most of your career, so Mage Armor is going to give you a base AC of 14-15. Slapping Shield on top of that gets you to AC 19-20, which makes you roughly on par with a martial character at the cost of a low-level spell slot and your reaction. It's fairly obvious to me that this was what they thinking of when balancing the classes - you cast Shield to prevent losing concentration on your big spell, because your AC and Con save are generally poor.

The thing is, even when you factor in the fact that casters generally hit a point where they don't have any good uses for casting low-level spells other than casting Shield and other defensive spells, that's still fine, because it mirrors how people with "real" armor are going to generally improve their AC, due to finally affording stuff like full plate, maxing out their Dexterity, or just plain finding magical armor. By the time that Mr. Wizard effectively has access to their Shielded AC all day long, everyone else should have AC that's at about that same level.

The problem is that they made it way too easy to get access to actual armor, which lets Shield break bounded accuracy like a twig. They made it too easy to grab proficiency in Constitution saves, which means that casters aren't forced to split their stat increases between Dexterity and Constitution to be "comfortable" in combat. While being able to cast spells in any armor you're proficient in is certainly a problem, the real issue is that spells like Shield were written without taking that into account.



An even bigger problem, in my mind, is that spellcasters are designed to cater to multiple incompatible playstyles. They have to have tons of spell slots for the people who want to participate in fights by throwing around multiple Fireballs, while at the same time they're designed so that you can get away with only using one or two spell slots per fight so that you can use them for utility. There's also a really bad trend where spellcasters get spells that boil down to plot powers - there's no good reason why things like Clone or Wish need to be player-accessible.

Honestly, the Warlock is closer to how spellcasters should have been designed if the whole "save my spells for utility and the big fight, normally contribute with cantrips" playstyle was deliberate. Because that's the playstyle they're are more-or-less designed around - that's why they get those Invocations that give access to additional spells known that they can only use once per long rest, and why they get bonuses to Eldritch Blast that make it as strong as it is.

Agreed that its way too easy for casters to get armor and constitution saving throw proficiency, those are crucial balancing factors that just kind of go out the window with the multiclassing and feats rules (another reason why the game is better balanced without those things...)

Casters just go so MUCH in general. So many spells that just instantly solve problems (find the path, invisibility, magnificent mansion, temple of the gods, teleport, telepathy, rope trick, leomund's, gate, wish etc). They can cast very easily (no more AoO if casting within 5ft) and with the optional MC and Feats rules, their biggest limitations (low defenses & vulnerable to losing concentration) literally disappear. Its expected that every caster get into "auto succeed territory" with concentration and IMO that should be quite rare. On top of everything, the way that rests tend to be handwaved more easily nowadays only compounds the problem, making casters leagues and stars above everyone else.

Its disheartening at times, and all the goodwill between classes and feelings of teamwork doesn't change that casters have way too few limitations on their power and that it impacts the game.

Personally I feel like every class could use a reduction in their spells known and I agree that the warlock feels like casters "done right" in comparison to martials.

[Belac93]

If a concern is balancing magic and martial characters, why not just buff martial characters and scale monsters up?

[Trask]

If a concern is balancing magic and martial characters, why not just buff martial characters and scale monsters up?

Because we shouldnt be so afraid to bring in line what is clearly an issue that we have to change literally everything else in the game to accommodate for one kind of character class.

[Amechra]

If a concern is balancing magic and martial characters, why not just buff martial characters and scale monsters up?

Because it's way easier to cut back to an established balance level than to try and invent six distinct sets of buffs that balance out with caster classes? Because anything you do to help martial characters out that isn't restricted to class features is going to also be available to casters by design.

[47Ace]

- there's no good reason why things like Clone or Wish need to be player-accessible.

I really have too different opinions about this on one hand I fell that part of the appeal of high level D&D is the bonkers high power level that spells like these represent. On the other hand I get that these spells don't necessarily fit certain play styles (neither does healing spirit, goodberry's food aspect, create food and water, or others) Pathfinder 2e has a really clean solution of giving spells certain rarities so spells like these are not in the game by default but need DM permission.

On clone in particular I personally feel that it solves a big problem with world building and high level play. I find that from a world building perspective that the easiest way to explain the world not being the Tippyverse is to pretend that the players are mostly the only people of their level. The PC being effectively immortal due to clone solves the huge (in my opinion) problem of otherwise trying to explain where the replacement character comes from. This is why I dislike high magic setting like the Forgotten Realms where it is still somehow medieval-esc despite multiple (I think) high level NPC of which Elminister is the best known example and, why I like the low but broad magic of Eberron where there is a soft cap of about level 10 with few npc exceptions (few with more then 3rd level spells even) but, magic has still effected the world in mostly logical ways. Though I do understand that not everyone shares my opinions about this which is why I like the Pathfinder 2e system of spell rarities.

Edit:

Because it's way easier to cut back to an established balance level than to try and invent six distinct sets of buffs that balance out with caster classes? Because anything you do to help martial characters out that isn't restricted to class features is going to also be available to casters by design.

I really do understand this, I just also see the appeal of a game with the power level of high level casters as they currently are whether that is bust done with an epic level hand book giving everyone caster demigod levels of power or by buffing non casters post level 10 (with class features (possible structured like warlock invocations or 3.5e feats) and providing a mechanism to stop level advancement at lower levels like 10 and 6. I think the reason why such high level effects exist is because they are the sort of things BBEG Wizards and Litches should have and there is no reason to have different NPC and PC spellcasting systems.

[Trask]

I think the reason why such high level effects exist is because they are the sort of things BBEG Wizards and Litches should have and there is no reason to have different NPC and PC spellcasting systems.

But there already is an implicit difference, with all the rituals to summon orcus, hordes of undead minions, mind controlled slaves and whatnot that villains usually have in adventures. If a PC had access to every kind of magic that NPC's are implied to have by plot and such, it would be a huge problem.

I dont think it's bad that these things be separate because they exist for different purposes.

[Amechra]

I really have too different opinions about this on one hand I fell that part of the appeal of high level D&D is the bonkers high power level that spells like these represent. On the other hand I get that these spells don't necessarily fit certain play styles (neither does healing spirit, goodberry's food aspect, create food and water, or others) Pathfinder 2e has a really clean solution of giving spells certain rarities so spells like these are not in the game by default but need DM permission.

On clone in particular I personally feel that it solves a big problem with world building and high level play. I find that from a world building perspective that the easiest way to explain the world not being the Tippyverse is to pretend that the players are mostly the only people of their level. The PC being effectively immortal due to clone solves the huge (in my opinion) problem of otherwise trying to explain where the replacement character comes from. This is why I dislike high magic setting like the Forgotten Realms where it is still somehow medieval-esc despite multiple (I think) high level NPC of which Elminister is the best known example and, why I like the low but broad magic of Eberron where there is a soft cap of about level 10 with few npc exceptions (few with more then 3rd level spells even) but, magic has still effected the world in mostly logical ways. Though I do understand that not everyone shares my opinions about this which is why I like the Pathfinder 2e system of spell rarities.

The reason I referred to them as "plot powers" is that many really high level spells are either things that should be the rewards for an adventure (you have a wish granted) or a cause for an adventure (oh no, the evil magic-user has a Doom Bot clone, so we have to adventure some more to stop them once and for all!). They are things that make the plot work, and they lose a lot of their shine when you can do them every day.

Your Clone example is actually kinda perfect - why does that have to be a spell? Why couldn't that be, I dunno, a magic item or something? Why does that need to be something that one single class can grab by default?

EDIT:


I think the reason why such high level effects exist is because they are the sort of things BBEG Wizards and Litches should have and there is no reason to have different NPC and PC spellcasting systems.

That's the thing - there is a reason. PCs and NPCs aren't built on the same rules in the first place, because they fill very different roles in the game. For example, most NPCs effectively exist for a single fight, so they need a different way to pace how many spells they can throw out. In a less mechanical sense, why should your Wizard (who, if you're playing from 1st level, probably started doing this whole "magic" thing less than a decade or two ago) have access to magic that is as good, if not better, than someone who literally turned themselves into an immortal skeleton so that they could study magic forever?

[LordCdrMilitant]

Interesting.

I'm of the opinion that high level spells, and low level spells, and spellcasting in general, aren't good enough.

Part of it is that they don't scale naturally and high level slots are very limited. Many of their effects are also incredibly unreliable. There's just a few spells that are outside the power level of even their peers, skewing the curve, IMO.


If I were to rebalance magic, I'd return damage scaling by caster level instead of spell level and/or return additional spell slots for having a high casting stat [or maybe just increase the number of slots per day]. Then, I'd look at the spells that have effects that are now too strong, and eliminate or reduce their effect.

There's no reason for Wish to exist beyond legacy. It would go, since it skews the curve for all other spells.
Dominate would be re-worked, because it's kind of useless now since it's such a high level high value slot that has such a high probability of just doing nothing, but its effect is supposedly worth it if it happens. This is IMO a bad model, and I would make it weaker [such as eliminating the direct control clause to just "give directions to" and reducing duration to like 1 minute instead of 1 hour so it's an encounter-length ability.]
Power Word Kill and Forcecage are pretty mundane, and probably don't need anything done about them.

[47Ace]

The reason I referred to them as "plot powers" is that many really high level spells are either things that should be the rewards for an adventure (you have a wish granted) or a cause for an adventure (oh no, the evil magic-user has a Doom Bot clone, so we have to adventure some more to stop them once and for all!). They are things that make the plot work, and they lose a lot of their shine when you can do them every day.

Your Clone example is actually kinda perfect - why does that have to be a spell? Why couldn't that be, I dunno, a magic item or something? Why does that need to be something that one single class can grab by default?


Oh that makes sense I agree with that. I kinda like the idea of high level spell casters being able to do that but your way makes lots of sense and maybe it should be an "epic level" thing.



EDIT:



That's the thing - there is a reason. PCs and NPCs aren't built on the same rules in the first place, because they fill very different roles in the game. For example, most NPCs effectively exist for a single fight, so they need a different way to pace how many spells they can throw out. In a less mechanical sense, why should your Wizard (who, if you're playing from 1st level, probably started doing this whole "magic" thing less than a decade or two ago) have access to magic that is as good, if not better, than someone who literally turned themselves into an immortal skeleton so that they could study magic forever?


But there already is an implicit difference, with all the rituals to summon orcus, hordes of undead minions, mind controlled slaves and whatnot that villains usually have in adventures. If a PC had access to every kind of magic that NPC's are implied to have by plot and such, it would be a huge problem.

I dont think it's bad that these things be separate because they exist for different purposes.

For whatever reason despite not thinking that lots of things others say are metagamey* are metagamey that feels a bit too metagamey for me but, it may still be the best solution.


*Legendary resistance and not starting with your biggest spells being the most common thing i see referred to a metagamey that I don't consider as such. Not trying to say that opinion is wrong but trying to suggest that to my mind I have a high bar for metagameyness.

[MrStabby]

Interesting.

I'm of the opinion that high level spells, and low level spells, and spellcasting in general, aren't good enough.

Part of it is that they don't scale naturally and high level slots are very limited. Many of their effects are also incredibly unreliable. There's just a few spells that are outside the power level of even their peers, skewing the curve, IMO.


If I were to rebalance magic, I'd return damage scaling by caster level instead of spell level and/or return additional spell slots for having a high casting stat [or maybe just increase the number of slots per day]. Then, I'd look at the spells that have effects that are now too strong, and eliminate or reduce their effect.

There's no reason for Wish to exist beyond legacy. It would go, since it skews the curve for all other spells.
Dominate would be re-worked, because it's kind of useless now since it's such a high level high value slot that has such a high probability of just doing nothing, but its effect is supposedly worth it if it happens. This is IMO a bad model, and I would make it weaker [such as eliminating the direct control clause to just "give directions to" and reducing duration to like 1 minute instead of 1 hour so it's an encounter-length ability.]
Power Word Kill and Forcecage are pretty mundane, and probably don't need anything done about them.

I think there are two things here... one is overall power of spell casting and the other is how it is expressed. On the overall power I think we disagree - I think the most feted low level spells dont tend to do damage and they do stay pretty powerful: fairy fire, misty step, hypnotic pattern, bless, shield etc.. now they are probably so highly regarded as they do scale as they dont do damage, but do spellcaster need 100% of their spells to scale as well as their best scaling 30% do?

How it is expressed is more interesting. Being a spellcaster and not being able to cast spells sucks. Being stuck with cantrips sucks... a system that pushed more of a class's spellcasting power into lower levels slots would be cool by me - less variance in what you do. I am not sure spell slots are the way to go for this though. Bigger changes.might be needed.

Certainly I think you have a point about how spes dont scale with caster level. Whilst we differ as I think it would overpower casters if it did, with no other changes, I think that there is some merit to your suggestion if you could keep an ok class balance. Those thematic spells that your character loved get forgotten as they are no longer effective - if burning hands was a bit of a trademark of your character then it is a shame to see it dropped rather than grow.

The balance between spells is terrible, I think we agree on that. Of all the spells in the PHB there are clear gaps between good ones and the mediocre ones and the bad ones. I think that sometimes this is forgotten or underplayed. For all that big sweeping changes can be proposed to systems, a lot of the problems could be fixed by changing about a third of spells.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I think there are two things here... one is overall power of spell casting and the other is how it is expressed. On the overall power I think we disagree - I think the most feted low level spells dont tend to do damage and they do stay pretty powerful: fairy fire, misty step, hypnotic pattern, bless, shield etc.. now they are probably so highly regarded as they do scale as they dont do damage, but do spellcaster need 100% of their spells to scale as well as their best scaling 30% do?

How it is expressed is more interesting. Being a spellcaster and not being able to cast spells sucks. Being stuck with cantrips sucks... a system that pushed more of a class's spellcasting power into lower levels slots would be cool by me - less variance in what you do. I am not sure spell slots are the way to go for this though. Bigger changes.might be needed.

Certainly I think you have a point about how spes dont scale with caster level. Whilst we differ as I think it would overpower casters if it did, with no other changes, I think that there is some merit to your suggestion if you could keep an ok class balance. Those thematic spells that your character loved get forgotten as they are no longer effective - if burning hands was a bit of a trademark of your character then it is a shame to see it dropped rather than grow.

The balance between spells is terrible, I think we agree on that. Of all the spells in the PHB there are clear gaps between good ones and the mediocre ones and the bad ones. I think that sometimes this is forgotten or underplayed. For all that big sweeping changes can be proposed to systems, a lot of the problems could be fixed by changing about a third of spells.


For martial vs. caster damage output balance, a very basic level 20 fighter can downrange 75+4d10+1d4 damage every turn without considering special abilities or anything. This is like a low bar for per-turn damage potential.

A sorcerer at 20th level can do more damage in a burst, but doesn't even come close to that kind of damage for an extended fight, and drops to 4d10 after all her spells are gone or she doesn't want to use them anymore. It's hard to measure her base per-turn downrange damage, but the bulk of her abilities are doing like 30-50 damage per turn, and her high-mid level but still really rare abilities like disintegrate aren't topping the fighter's baseline damage potential.

I nominated sorcerer because she's comparable to fighter, with twinned spell basically being like an action surge. Sorcerer can twin a disintegrate/finger of death and quicken a cantrip for along the lines of [20 to 38]d6+80+4d10 for 9-12 sorcerery points, and can do this twice per day [before running out of sorcery points], before dropping off to doing just the 10d6+40 twice, then then further down into irrelevance in the damage per turn realm. The Fighter can action surge her full attack cycle for 150+8d10+2d4 twice per day before dropping off to the 75+4d10+1d4 damage.

38d6+80+4d10 averages out to 256 burst damage, and 150+8d10+1d4 averages out to 204. Sorcerer then drops to 80 and Fighter to 102, and then Sorcerer drops again to like 40 and then to like 20 and stops being comparatively relevant as a damage source. Fighter takes over the lead in damage on only the 6th or 7th round of combat for the day.



I don't think this is actually too bad, because to some degree the caster is supposed to be providing less damage to more targets [like a meteor storm of 160 average to basically-everybody once per day] and/or support abilities that make everybody else more effective or the enemy less effective, as opposed to single-target alpha striking. However, I think this illustrates why there should be something to push the lower level spells up in ability without costing high level spell slots.

Some spells that don't do damage are strong, but because of the way combat works in 5e [which is another problem and another discussion to have another time], a lot of the ones that do damage I think are actually legitimately strong options when they come available, and then quickly decline into obsolescence and the slots into sorcerery points.

The low level spells that IMO have the best staying power are Invisibility, Fly, D-Door, and Greater Invisibility because they have tactical maneuver value and minimal failure chance, and assuming the party size doesn't change, neither does their effect grow relatively weaker.

[Telok]

A quick and dirty solution is that when on a players turn they declare they are casting a spell, but the spell isn't actually cast until the initiative count of (original initiative - 2*spell level).
It's treated as pseudo concentration, whenever they receive damage between beginning and finishing casting the spell they must succeed a concentration check or fail to cast the spell that round.

So lets say Wilgaf the Vile with an initiative of 13 decides they want to cast a third level spell on their turn. Wilgaf begins the casting process and in the meantime any player with an initiative from 7 to 12 has the opportunity attempt an attack and disrupt the spell.
For an extra dynamic, it could be based on the original level of the spell. An upcast burning hands has less of a chance of being disrupted than a fireball, creating interesting tradeoffs.

AD&D casting times, usually additional segments (initative points) per spell level. Also reference weapons speeds where smaller weapons are faster to use and a complete lack of things like concentration rolls. All limitations abandoned as "un-fun", leading eventually to our current paradigm of always magic all the time and denying martials fun stuff.

That was what, 45 years ago?

[patchyman]

How it is expressed is more interesting. Being a spellcaster and not being able to cast spells sucks. Being stuck with cantrips sucks... a system that pushed more of a class's spellcasting power into lower levels slots would be cool by me - less variance in what you do. I am not sure spell slots are the way to go for this though. Bigger changes.might be needed.

Certainly I think you have a point about how spes dont scale with caster level. Whilst we differ as I think it would overpower casters if it did, with no other changes, I think that there is some merit to your suggestion if you could keep an ok class balance. Those thematic spells that your character loved get forgotten as they are no longer effective - if burning hands was a bit of a trademark of your character then it is a shame to see it dropped rather than grow.
I’ve never played a level 10+ game so I haven’t yet seen this problem firsthand.

That being said, I’ve been toying with a novel approach to fixing it. Basically, the spell progression follows the normal curve until level 6 (10 spell slots total). After level 6, spells casters don’t get more slots, their slots simply
get more powerful (i.e. they gain a new slot, but lose their lowest level existing slot).

A 7th level wizard has 1 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 3 1st level slots. A 12th level wizard has 1 6th level, 2 5th level, 3 4th level, 3 3rd level and 2 2nd level slots. You can always cast a spell using a higher level slot, so your Shield spell remains somewhat useful.

You have to be careful with your spells because even at high levels you can run out.

[Misterwhisper]

For martial vs. caster damage output balance, a very basic level 20 fighter can downrange 75+4d10+1d4 damage every turn without considering special abilities or anything. This is like a low bar for per-turn damage potential.

A sorcerer at 20th level can do more damage in a burst, but doesn't even come close to that kind of damage for an extended fight, and drops to 4d10 after all her spells are gone or she doesn't want to use them anymore. It's hard to measure her base per-turn downrange damage, but the bulk of her abilities are doing like 30-50 damage per turn, and her high-mid level but still really rare abilities like disintegrate aren't topping the fighter's baseline damage potential.

I nominated sorcerer because she's comparable to fighter, with twinned spell basically being like an action surge. Sorcerer can twin a disintegrate/finger of death and quicken a cantrip for along the lines of [20 to 38]d6+80+4d10 for 9-12 sorcerery points, and can do this twice per day [before running out of sorcery points], before dropping off to doing just the 10d6+40 twice, then then further down into irrelevance in the damage per turn realm. The Fighter can action surge her full attack cycle for 150+8d10+2d4 twice per day before dropping off to the 75+4d10+1d4 damage.

38d6+80+4d10 averages out to 256 burst damage, and 150+8d10+1d4 averages out to 204. Sorcerer then drops to 80 and Fighter to 102, and then Sorcerer drops again to like 40 and then to like 20 and stops being comparatively relevant as a damage source. Fighter takes over the lead in damage on only the 6th or 7th round of combat for the day.



I don't think this is actually too bad, because to some degree the caster is supposed to be providing less damage to more targets [like a meteor storm of 160 average to basically-everybody once per day] and/or support abilities that make everybody else more effective or the enemy less effective, as opposed to single-target alpha striking. However, I think this illustrates why there should be something to push the lower level spells up in ability without costing high level spell slots.

Some spells that don't do damage are strong, but because of the way combat works in 5e [which is another problem and another discussion to have another time], a lot of the ones that do damage I think are actually legitimately strong options when they come available, and then quickly decline into obsolescence and the slots into sorcerery points.

The low level spells that IMO have the best staying power are Invisibility, Fly, D-Door, and Greater Invisibility because they have tactical maneuver value and minimal failure chance, and assuming the party size doesn't change, neither does their effect grow relatively weaker.

That is one of the other main issues, there are no extended fights like old editions.

I never made it to level 20 but I have made it to 16 once and 17 once.

No fight lasted more than 4 rounds. None.
I have never even heard of a combat in other groups go past 6.
Most of the time of a fight goes past 4 it is because everyone is stuck in darkness or fog or something and people are doing nothing most of the time.

Heck in the level 16 capped game where I played a melee rogue, I didn’t even bother rolling initiative after level 11 because I knew that nothing I was going to do in actual combat mattered.

We had:
An evoker wizard one level fighter
A life cleric
A bear totem barbarian with PAM
A vengeance paladin one level hexblade and PAM
A Lore Bard
And
Me as a melee centered rogue swashbuckler who used a custom made 2 handed reach finesse weapon.

It was very much the 10 min adventuring day, so I just went around and scoped places for hidden rooms and things while everyone else handled the fighting.

[Trask]

That is one of the other main issues, there are no extended fights like old editions.

I never made it to level 20 but I have made it to 16 once and 17 once.

No fight lasted more than 4 rounds. None.
I have never even heard of a combat in other groups go past 6.
Most of the time of a fight goes past 4 it is because everyone is stuck in darkness or fog or something and people are doing nothing most of the time.

Heck in the level 16 capped game where I played a melee rogue, I didn’t even bother rolling initiative after level 11 because I knew that nothing I was going to do in actual combat mattered.

We had:
An evoker wizard one level fighter
A life cleric
A bear totem barbarian with PAM
A vengeance paladin one level hexblade and PAM
A Lore Bard
And
Me as a melee centered rogue swashbuckler who used a custom made 2 handed reach finesse weapon.

It was very much the 10 min adventuring day, so I just went around and scoped places for hidden rooms and things while everyone else handled the fighting.

Unfortunately your experience reflects mine as well, at high levels the way casters just absolutely shut down encounters before they even begin can be pretty gross. The DM's solution to this way to make enemy saves ridiculously high and giving way too many creatures legendary resistances (instead of putting in more encounters in one adventuring cycle...) and casters almost immediately became the other extreme, very weak. This just isnt the way the game was designed.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the first thing any DM should do to remedy this is to not make it so easy to take a long rest, either by danger, time pressure or making the requirements for actually completing one higher (must be done in safety and comfort, or only in certain designated "safe spots" in the map). Casters should be exhausting their spell slots by the end of a long rest, not just resting to get their 6+ slots back.

Of course this doesn't fix the entire problem, but its the very first thing anyone can do to start making it less of one.

[Amechra]

I’ve never played a level 10+ game so I haven’t yet seen this problem firsthand.

That being said, I’ve been toying with a novel approach to fixing it. Basically, the spell progression follows the normal curve until level 6 (10 spell slots total). After level 6, spells casters don’t get more slots, their slots simply
get more powerful (i.e. they gain a new slot, but lose their lowest level existing slot).

A 7th level wizard has 1 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 3 1st level slots. A 12th level wizard has 1 6th level, 2 5th level, 3 4th level, 3 3rd level and 2 2nd level slots. You can always cast a spell using a higher level slot, so your Shield spell remains somewhat useful.

You have to be careful with your spells because even at high levels you can run out.

This reminds me of 13th Age, which is a good thing - it's a pretty elegant way to cap out how much power you can bring to bear. It might be messy when it comes to certain class features - Arcane Recovery comes to mind immediately, but I'm pretty sure there are others.

[Pex]

There is a fine line between this being appropriate and this being an inappropriate and monumentally selfish approach.

It is fine as long as a casters big thing does not diminish what another players big thing is. If another player's big thing is doing damage and meteor swarm overshadows that then one players big thing is spoiling the experience if someone else. If a players big thing is absorbing damage and a high level spell stops that damage then one player being inconsiderate spoils the fun of another player. If a player plays a ranger to guide the party accross the wilderness and that gets skipped through a teleport spell then that player doing their thing is taking away from the fun of someone else at the table.

Any analysis that only looks at that one player and what that player wants is bound to be flawed. Likewise an analysis that looks at the encounter that was, rather than the encounter that would be in the absence of high level spells is similarly problematic.

It isn't just winning or losing but ensuring that every player has a chance to shine during that process but also that they have a chance to shine at equally dramatic and narratively important points. Who ever is running the game needs to look after the fun of the whole table and not just one player.

Wizard casts Meteor Swarm? Wonderful. All the hoard of mooks are dead. The BBEG and Lieutenants of the fight are singed. The barbarian rages and attacks one, getting in its face and pummeling it probably with great weapon master. The paladin charges at another one smiting it to death. The fighter goes after a third one using his Maneuvers and Action Surge. The ranger snipes away with his bow picking off any of the BBEGS or Lieutenants who somehow survive the warriors' wrath. The rogues kites in and sneaks attack one. The monk runs in stunning one, perhaps to help the paladin land his smite blows.

Maybe the wizard Mazes the BBEG of the fight. Wonderful. Everyone else kills the mooks and all pummel the BBEG when he returns. Hooray, the wizard was MVP of that fight. Everyone is happy. The wizard player is allowed to be MVP of a fight. In another fight it will be another player. There's no reason to resent spellcasters having their turn in the limelight.

[Talionis]

The idea has merit but I think you’d need to look at it from a spell by spell basis. You’d need to decide about what you want to do with a seventh level fireball. Spells would all need a rebalancing. I’d want WotC to rebalance I wouldn’t trust myself.

[LordCdrMilitant]

That is one of the other main issues, there are no extended fights like old editions.

I never made it to level 20 but I have made it to 16 once and 17 once.

No fight lasted more than 4 rounds. None.
I have never even heard of a combat in other groups go past 6.
Most of the time of a fight goes past 4 it is because everyone is stuck in darkness or fog or something and people are doing nothing most of the time.

Heck in the level 16 capped game where I played a melee rogue, I didn’t even bother rolling initiative after level 11 because I knew that nothing I was going to do in actual combat mattered.

We had:
An evoker wizard one level fighter
A life cleric
A bear totem barbarian with PAM
A vengeance paladin one level hexblade and PAM
A Lore Bard
And
Me as a melee centered rogue swashbuckler who used a custom made 2 handed reach finesse weapon.

It was very much the 10 min adventuring day, so I just went around and scoped places for hidden rooms and things while everyone else handled the fighting.

4 rounds of combat in an adventuring day sounds kind of ridiculous.

I could see maybe 4 rounds in a single combat, especially if everybody unloads, but in a whole day seems kind of extreme levels of 10 minute adventuring day. I would say that we probably usually have 4-10 rounds in a single combat, and in a day that involves combats, there are usually several [Most days do not involve combat]. I definitely understand an argument that short rests might as well not exist so Fighter doesn't get to alpha strike more than Sorcerer, but Fighter isn't actually relying on being able to recharge her burst abilities on a short rest to outperform the long rest Sorcerer, only that there's 7 or more rounds of combat in a day where there's a fight.

As far as being a melee centered rogue, it's not just the caster showing you up:

As mentioned, even a basic fighter build [any type, PAM & GWM] is going to downrange 204 average potential damage on the opening/action surge rounds and 102 on a regular turn. Shooty Rogue, on the round they Assassinate [first round], outputs 20d6+2d10+15 [107] [or some combination thereof, since most of the damage is coming from Sneak Attack] on the first round of combat and drops to 10d6+1d10+15 [61] on each round thereafter. This isn't favorable at all. Without Assassinate, Rogue doesn't even get the damage spike on turn 1 [I don't know what Swashbuckler gets, though].






I’ve never played a level 10+ game so I haven’t yet seen this problem firsthand.

That being said, I’ve been toying with a novel approach to fixing it. Basically, the spell progression follows the normal curve until level 6 (10 spell slots total). After level 6, spells casters don’t get more slots, their slots simply
get more powerful (i.e. they gain a new slot, but lose their lowest level existing slot).

A 7th level wizard has 1 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 3 1st level slots. A 12th level wizard has 1 6th level, 2 5th level, 3 4th level, 3 3rd level and 2 2nd level slots. You can always cast a spell using a higher level slot, so your Shield spell remains somewhat useful.

You have to be careful with your spells because even at high levels you can run out.

IMO, expecting the use of cantrips for damage is only really acceptable in the calculation if the alpha strike and follow-on rates are actually exceeding the every-turn always-active floor for the noncaster. Given that this isn't true, I think that casters just need the potential in their low end slots to grow with level.
[as a side note, without twinning spells the burst damage out of a spellcaster isn't even that high]

If we took, for example, Fireball [which is common and good when it becomes available but is obsolete not too long afterwords] and scaled it as it used to be [1d6/caster level], then it would do 20d6 [80] damage at 20th level. This would be pretty acceptable for a 20th level blast effect, and alleviate the problem of high-level casters having 6 turns of useful damage output [which still for the most part doesn't actually exceed noncasters] before dropping off to irrelevance in that regard and mostly being useful for teleporting places.

[jas61292]

If a concern is balancing magic and martial characters, why not just buff martial characters and scale monsters up?

With regard to this point, other than what has been mentioned about it being easier to fix that which is too good, rather than fixing every other things in the game, it is also important to note that simply moving everything to the same power level doesn't necessarily fix things, if that power level is bad for the game. There is a mantra you may often hear in conversations like this one: "always buff, never nerf." However, that phrase, despite being common, is almost entirely BS. You are likely to hear it from people who enjoy the things that are being called overpowered, but , almost anyone with significant experience in game design can tell you that it is not a good idea.

Games are designed around particular power levels. That power level is what allows all of the systems of the game to interact properly. This big problem is that the mechanics that the players get to use are not the only mechanics in the system. If a player option is out of whack when it comes to balance, it is not simply because it is a different power level than other player options. The issue is that it is out of line with what all the other systems of the game expect. Changing the power level of everything else to match this broken element does not fix everything. It may make the other options feel less outclassed, but the game itself will still have significant issues, since it will not be expecting players to have that level of power. Only by dialing back an overpowered option (or dialing up an underpowered one) can you actually fix balance issues and have a game that plays how it is expected to.

Now obviously, whether or not any particular thing is overpowered or not is a different question all together. But while it is tempting to always want to leave something powerful alone because some people enjoy it, you are not going to fix balance issues without fixing the actual elements that are at issue.

[DarknessEternal]

In-combat spells are already garbage at high level play compared to non-spell-based classes. Too many things have spell resistance, damage/condition immunities, and legendary resistance. An extra action to cast a spell is only punitive in combat, which is the place that spells are already pretty bad.

If you're upset about high level spells, I have to assume you mean the out of combat ones. In which case, who cares how long it takes to cast?

[Yakk]

With a level 11 Fighter, dealing about 15 damage per hit and a ~75% hit chance, we're looking at an average of 11 damage per attack, 3 attacks per turn, and 3 more attacks in the first turn of each encounter.I see your problem.

My model level 11 fighter deals 4d6+15+1d8 damage per hit with a 50% hit chance 5% crit chance x3 for 33.5 * 1.5 + 2.775 or 53.025 damage per round, or 106 damage with action surge. Accounting for accuracy.

Or, a champion 3/barbarian 8 that has advantage, hits 75% for 1d12+2d6+17 (30.5) and 19% crit for an additional 2d12+2d6 (20) on crit, 2 attacks deal 53.35 damage, action surge for 107.

Or, elven Paladin 6/Samurai 3/Hexblade 1/Sorcerer 1 attacking for 2d6+5d8+11 (including smite)x2 at 40.5, 27% crits for 5d8+2d6(29.5), 98% accuracy, 95.31 per action.

Or a Fighter 11 BM sharpshooter.

Or Gloomstalker 3/Battlemaster 5/Assassin 3, opening for 18d6+8d8+126 = 225 damage on round 1.

[MaxWilson]

AD&D casting times, usually additional segments (initative points) per spell level. Also reference weapons speeds where smaller weapons are faster to use and a complete lack of things like concentration rolls. All limitations abandoned as "un-fun", leading eventually to our current paradigm of always magic all the time and denying martials fun stuff.

That was what, 45 years ago?

1977-present.

[Luccan]

AD&D casting times, usually additional segments (initative points) per spell level. Also reference weapons speeds where smaller weapons are faster to use and a complete lack of things like concentration rolls. All limitations abandoned as "un-fun", leading eventually to our current paradigm of always magic all the time and denying martials fun stuff.

That was what, 45 years ago?

TBF, magic-user and cleric casting times were intended to be unfun because Gary didn't like that some people wanted to play something other than Conan.

[MrStabby]

So the wizard casts meteor swarm, the BBEG then used their turn to flee may be more likely. The BBEG hanging round to die just so the party can mop up the fight after the wizard has made sure the party outnumbers the bad guys is hardly the most likely choice.

And there is no resentment about a caster being MVP in a fight, it is that they always get first pick of which fights to be MVP in. In this hypothetical fight with the minions, the lieutenants AND the BBEG it sounds pretty epic - the caster can chose to outshine everyone else here and they dont get a say in that. If there was some more symmetry and the barbarian could chose to open a fight with an ability that, whilst not ending the fight, did mean the result was not in doubt, but could only do it once per day then fair enough - whoever rolled higher initiative can be the one who steals the show in the most epic fight of the campaign. As it is those with high level spells decide on a fight by fight basis if that fight is one that is important enough and fun enough to dominate or whether it is trivial and can be left for another PC to be MVP of.

The problem isn't a caster shining in some encounters, it is the caster getting to chose which ones in a way that the other players dont. The key metric is which players get to use their abilities to make a difference: does the barbarian raging in your example make a difference? Was the fight already won then and the use of the ability is just for show? Too often the really big swing is landing the spell and the impact of some classes using their toys is too little too late.

I think that it is worth noting that it isn't all spells that do this. Some are better designed than others. Spells like spirit guardians can do a lot of damage but also give others space to do their things (although not a high level spell it gives an indication of what I mean); it contributes to a fight rather than deciding it. Crown of stars might be an equivalent high level example. Foresight is the same, an incremental impact that gives others the space to shine. Spells like Maze and Forcecage that can turn a fight around by themselves are the opposite.

Fixing this isn't about squashing fun, it is about opening things up so that more players get to have fun at the climactic moments rather than just escorting the high level casters to the big fights.

[terodil]

And there is no resentment about a caster being MVP in a fight, it is that they always get first pick of which fights to be MVP in.
I believe that this is a deeply flawed argument, even if we disregard the excessively dangerous 'always'. It relies heavily on the assumptions that the mage in question a- has the spell learned/prepared, b- has saved the spellslot during the entire day of adventuring, c- that this is the fight that 'matters' and not the one after. Or the one previous that the group managed with difficulty and that the meteor swarm could have made much easier. d- that the spell actually does something and doesn't miss / get saved against / fail for a myriad of other possible reasons, and e- that 'being the MVP' is the thing that matters to the mage, and not 'group success', 'fun RPing' or anything else. I don't think any one of these assumptions is trivial.

[MrStabby]

I believe that this is a deeply flawed argument, even if we disregard the excessively dangerous 'always'. It relies heavily on the assumptions that the mage in question a- has the spell learned/prepared, b- has saved the spellslot during the entire day of adventuring, c- that this is the fight that 'matters' and not the one after. Or the one previous that the group managed with difficulty and that the meteor swarm could have made much easier. d- that the spell actually does something and doesn't miss / get saved against / fail for a myriad of other possible reasons, and e- that 'being the MVP' is the thing that matters to the mage, and not 'group success', 'fun RPing' or anything else. I don't think any one of these assumptions is trivial.

Some of these points are more legitimate than others. Working in order:
A) has the spell slot learned or prepared. It is possible, if you try really hard, to pick sets of high level spells that will be useless in a big fight. I absolutely conceed this is possible. Some classes are more likely to have this than others - for example a wizard or cleric with access to divination magic has a pretty good chance of knowing what is coming up and can change. A sorcerer or warlock who made poor choices is stuck with them. This point though doesn't seem relevant to me, the OP suggested changes to how these spells cast. If, as you are suggesting, you dont have anything appropriate to cast out of your high level slots, or dont have the slots... then these changes have absolutely no impact at all.

B) This is my point. It is the choice of the caster as to when they dominate. They can chose not to on any given encounter. It is their choice to hold back. Other classes with a less uneven distribution of power get to shine, not according to their timetable but to the decision of the caster. So yeah, it assumes the caster saves slots - the problem is when they can.

C) this is the fight that matters. Ok, sure if you have only 1 high level slot then you need to use it in the right fight. When you have only one high level slot then the OP suggestion only impacts one spell in the entire day anyway. If you have a slot of 6th, 7th and 8th level then that is three encounters you have high level slots for. Your point here is legitimate though in that when you have exceptionally long adventuring days with each encounter being as tough as all the others with no climactic boss fights or easy encounters then this issue does diminish a lot. Sure, there are other problems but the point remains.

D) The problem is described is with a single spell ending the dram of a key encounter before the other PCs get an equal chance to have their class features shine. If the spell doesn't do that it is a non issue. So yeah, if they dont do the thing that spoils the game the game isn't spoiled. Much like if they chose not to cast the spell. I guess this is true...

E) This is the one that I strongly disagree with. The "MVP" thing I am not so tied to - it was Pex's term so I borrowed it for consistency. I dont think it matters at all what the PC casting the spell is aiming for though. If they cast Maze because it is an awesomely evocative spell and they love the description and if they cast it in the most important fight because they are role playing someone who wants to survive that fight and defeat their enemies you get the same effect as someone who selects and casts the spell to demonstrate that their character is really really powerful or even someone who wants to actively stop the rest of the party doing their thing. Indeed the alternative motivation of "group success" is the most common motivation I have seen for this problem. Player wants the party to overcome the encounter therefore PC casts the spell that will achieve that.

I would say that you have missed out bigger assumptions though, thinks like the assumption that someone is playing a caster. But the nature of calling these assumptions such doesn't diminish the OP's point that it would be useful to have rules in place that stop these problems from occurring when the conditions, that you call assumptions, are met.

[terodil]

I don't have all that much time at the moment, so I'll just focus on one element that does re-occur several times in your argument, and that's the point of 'if it doesn't matter [e.g. because there is no appropriate spell, the spell fails or anything else], the change doesn't have any impact'. That's not true, I think. It makes the caster feel even ****tier; it's not just the strategic failure of picking a bad spell for the encounter, e.g. due to lack of foreknowledge, or the operational failure of having a suitable spell fail entirely -- now the caster has to pay an extra penalty on top because it could potentially have been a good spell, saved for the right time, that was 100% effective. If I was a caster, I would feel very demotivated by this. YMMV.

[kazaryu]

Well, I dunno about that.

At level 11, a single spell slot, at 6th level spent on your example of Chain Lightning, will afford that Wizard about 3-4 turns of a Fighter hacking away. That's without spending a single other spell slot.



hmmm, i can see what you mean. on the other hand that assumes a particular style of play. i.e. very short adventuring days. and while i agree that that is a fairly common way to play the game, its not what the game is balanced around. sure, 1/day the caster can do 3/4 turns worth of the fighters at-will damage. But it also makes sense that expending a daily resource should get more out of it than an at-will resource.

meanwhile, as you point out, passively the fighter has significantly more HP than the wizard. and in order for the wizard to keep up, they need to expend even more resources.

Now im not trying to argue that spell casting at high levels is *actually* balance. especially when you consider that most games probably dont do the 6-8 encounters per day thing. However, using a comparison of a 1/day resource to an at-will attack is a pretty poor argument.

[Cikomyr2]

TBF, magic-user and cleric casting times were intended to be unfun because Gary didn't like that some people wanted to play something other than Conan.

But now aren't we going the other way with one of the 5e creator that made sure wizards were still overpowered no matter what?

The whole point of this is that I like the thematic feel of major spellcaster having to take a heavy swing before they punch, and the team needing to adjust around them.

[Amechra]

The thing about the "1/day vs. at-will" argument is that it falls apart in any playstyle where you have 1-2 encounters per day. Because at that point, it effectively goes from being once per day to being once per fight, which is a whole different can of worms. Both players and DMs have an incentive to have really short adventuring days. On the PC side, they get back all of these really powerful limited resources, which make otherwise dangerous encounters much easier. On the DM side, running 6-8 challenging encounters that drain resources is hard work, and doesn't always make sense, especially when you're playing something other than a dungeon crawl.

None of this would be a problem if WotC had built 5e to actually support the "6-8 encounters per long rest" that they balanced their game around. This would involve stuff like giving DMs proper tools for making things like "talking to people" or "navigating the wilderness" into encounters instead of "you roll a skill, I guess?", generally making it much easier to plan and run encounters, and removing player control over when they can "rest" so that playing with shorter adventuring days has to be intentional. Pushing the burden of hitting this balance point onto DMs instead of making it a reasonable default isn't great - you can only have so many time-sensitive adventures, after all.

[Luccan]

But now aren't we going the other way with one of the 5e creator that made sure wizards were still overpowered no matter what?

The whole point of this is that I like the thematic feel of major spellcaster having to take a heavy swing before they punch, and the team needing to adjust around them.

I can see the argument, though I don't think it's necessary. If you want casters to not be the focus of "every" fight, making the martials protect them while they wait to cast their uber spell seems a poor way to do it and less fun for both parties. I would seriously take the earlier suggestion of playing a lower level game to heart. Or even go as far as adapting the E6 system or the related E8/E10 from 3.5.

[Man_Over_Game]

.

Now im not trying to argue that spell casting at high levels is *actually* balance. especially when you consider that most games probably dont do the 6-8 encounters per day thing. However, using a comparison of a 1/day resource to an at-will attack is a pretty poor argument.

I didn't just compare a 1/day resource to an at-will.

I also took into account for the Fighter's Action Surge, and the damage benefits of the Fighter's Subclass (A Fighter with no subclass abilities would deal about 10-12 damage per hit, not 15).

But even a level 3 spell, like Fireball, is capable of dealing 25 damage per target, assuming a 60% miss chance, hitting an 8x8 grid. When I compared the Wizard, I assumed he was using nothing but Fire Bolt after his one big spell for the day.

But I'd be satisfied if someone else would show me why I'm wrong rather than telling me. This is not the first time I've done an analysis on the contribution between casters and noncasters, but the only arguments I ever hear is "that isn't what happens in real games".

So show me what *does* happen. What should I be accounting for that I'm missing?

[MrStabby]

I didn't just compare a 1/day resource to an at-will.

I also took into account for the Fighter's Action Surge, and the damage benefits of the Fighter's Subclass (A Fighter with no subclass abilities would deal about 10-12 damage per hit, not 15).

But I'd be satisfied if someone else would show me why I'm wrong. This is not the first time I've done a quick analysis on the contribution between casters and noncasters, but the only arguments I ever hear is "that isn't what happens in real games".

So show me what *does* happen.

I think the "show me what *does* happen" part, in my experience, comes down to fights being avoided as much as anything else. Those 4 days of grueling wilderness challenge, staving off predations of dinosaurs and barbarian tribes where the strongest and those who can keep going all day excel gets replaced with something like teleport. Now half the party has skipped their chance to shine, the party is 4 days ahead of schedule so can take 4 more long rests before they start to fall behind.

Sure, it isn't always teleport (although I have seen that undermine characters multiple times). What *does* happen that causes the most issues is, in my experience only occasionally about the damage - if we are talking about the resource trade off. Now these spells are not going to be impacted the same way by the OP suggestion, so responding somewhat to a tangent.

The high level spells I have seen be most problematic cast in battles are force cage and banishment (out of a high level slot), maze, wish and a few others, not really the damage spells so much.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think the "show me what *does* happen" part, in my experience, comes down to fights being avoided as much as anything else. Those 4 days of grueling wilderness challenge, staving off predations of dinosaurs and barbarian tribes where the strongest and those who can keep going all day excel gets replaced with something like teleport. Now half the party has skipped their chance to shine, the party is 4 days ahead of schedule so can take 4 more long rests before they start to fall behind.

Sure, it isn't always teleport (although I have seen that undermine characters multiple times). What *does* happen that causes the most issues is, in my experience only occasionally about the damage - if we are talking about the resource trade off. Now these spells are not going to be impacted the same way by the OP suggestion, so responding somewhat to a tangent.

The high level spells I have seen be most problematic cast in battles are force cage and banishment (out of a high level slot), maze, wish and a few others, not really the damage spells so much.

Honestly, I think Chain Lightning is probably one of the worst ways of spending a level 6 slot, but it still seems to surpass most things a Fighter could do.

It seems like a problem on two fronts.

Mages seem to solve problems out of combat better than Fighters.

Mages seem to solve problems in combat better than Fighters.

Even if the Wizard spends his combat resources for non-combat stuff, it'd be because it was more valuable to do so (like through your teleport example).

How much fighting would it take for the Fighter to outpace a Wizard, past level 5? A lot, I'd reckon. I guess you could convert all of the spell slots into damage, then have the Fighter match that, assuming about an Action Surge once every 4 combat rounds, after subtracting the Wizard's cantrips damage per round after the spell slots are spent.

I could probably make something up to guess that later today

[MrStabby]

Honestly, I think Chain Lightning is probably one of the worst ways of spending a level 6 slot, but it still seems to surpass most things a Fighter could do.

It seems like a problem on two fronts.

Mages seem to solve problems out of combat better than Fighters.

Mages seem to solve problems in combat better than Fighters.

Even if the Wizard spends his combat resources for non-combat stuff, it'd be because it was more valuable to do so (like through your teleport example).

How much fighting would it take for the Fighter to outpace a Wizard, past level 5? A lot, I'd reckon. I guess you could convert all of the spell slots into damage, then have the Fighter match that, assuming about an Action Surge once every 4 combat rounds, after subtracting the Wizard's cantrips damage per round after the spell slots are spent.

I could probably make something up to guess that later today

I think perspectives may differ a little depending on game styles. If the problem is that there are 1200 hostile and armed tribesmen between where you are and where you need to be, then this is a problem that can be solved by teleport or cutting a bloody swathe through them on a 4 day march. To me it is just a situation, an obstacle to be overcome and isn't a "combat challenge" or a "non-combat challenge".

I find a lot of objectives are. You need to steal a secret ritual from a wizard? You can solve it in a non combat way through dimension door, grab the papers and leave. You can also have a combat solution which is to kill everything in the tower, grab the ritual, burn the tower down, kill all the witnesses...

I think the issue is some PCs have too great a capacity to solve problems, invalidating what other classes bring.

[Amechra]

I can see the argument, though I don't think it's necessary. If you want casters to not be the focus of "every" fight, making the martials protect them while they wait to cast their uber spell seems a poor way to do it and less fun for both parties. I would seriously take the earlier suggestion of playing a lower level game to heart. Or even go as far as adapting the E6 system or the related E8/E10 from 3.5.

Honestly? It depends on the framing. You'd have to build the game around it, but I could see a game where your party spellcasters set a time limit on the fight could be fun.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I was wondering. I think at high levels, spells are just too much of a game breaker to be spontaneously cast. I don't mind Wizards and Sorcerers and all to change the world in a major way by doing magic, but I think gameplay and thematic wise, high level spells should be less a half second effort.

What if a Sudden Death spell would take two Actions to cast. You can do your bonus action during rounds where you cast the spell. You can take your movement. But your action is dedicated in pre-casting your spell. You can hold an uncast spell for a while with Concentration checks. But you have to finish it to actually cast it. So it won't get out next round.

The idea is to.. Make high level (11+) spellcasters just a little slower to deploy their top lvl 6+ spells, which are kind of a game breaker a times.

I like that they are gamebreaker. It's high level magic. But I think the game might be more enjoyable and tactical if the casters had to dedicate 2+ rounds of action deploying their Big Cannons. Again, they have their bonus action and movement.

However, a Fighter/Caster could dedicate their Action Surge to do two casting actions jn the same round.

And i guess a sorcerer with Swift casting could replace one of the casting action for a Bonus action.

Whatcha think?


I think giving cool things to everyone is a better option than nerfing specific classes. Especially when 6/12 of the classes get 6th+ spellcasting.

The reasons my groups don't play high level games isn't because of the casters, they're cool and fun to play, it"s that the other half of the casters fall closer to the "meh" range after you hit level 11.

Your proposed rules would make me, and my groups, not play high level even more than usual as we do one shots from time to time at high level.

[Telok]

I think the issue is some PCs have too great a capacity to solve problems, invalidating what other classes bring.

Perhaps rather than "too great" it might be that some classes are not designed to have non-combat problem solving, or that their problem solving is niche and inflexable.

The ranger class has problem solving abilities, but they're all "explore/survive outdoor winderness" and can't really be applied to varied stuff like dungeons, cities, planar travel, etc. Their abilities are narrow and... say, not modular? They can't adapt their abilities to fit the situation, the explore stuff can't be adapted (natively in the game structure given in the books, of course) to exploring a city for faster travel, they can't use surviving harsh environment in a dungeon.

Then you have poor fighter class, that is punished for investing in non-combat stats and only gets basic skill proficency for problem solving.

It will be argued that feats (optional, not guaranteed, competes with needed ability advancement) and backgrounds make up for this. But all characters get those, all are equally available, and those are all narrow-niche-inflexable.

By contrast the "too much" problem solving casters have one main class ability, spellcasting, which is adaptable and modular. Say the fighter class got 'stunts', a per day/known resource like sorc casting but focused on a mix of combat tricks an non-combat "this type of problem gets solved" things. Suddenly making new stunts is as easy as making new spells, and fighters can get the sort of splat expansion that casters do. Also, non-combat problem solving is baked into the class just like the casters.

[MrStabby]

Perhaps rather than "too great" it might be that some classes are not designed to have non-combat problem solving, or that their problem solving is niche and inflexable.

The ranger class has problem solving abilities, but they're all "explore/survive outdoor winderness" and can't really be applied to varied stuff like dungeons, cities, planar travel, etc. Their abilities are narrow and... say, not modular? They can't adapt their abilities to fit the situation, the explore stuff can't be adapted (natively in the game structure given in the books, of course) to exploring a city for faster travel, they can't use surviving harsh environment in a dungeon.

Then you have poor fighter class, that is punished for investing in non-combat stats and only gets basic skill proficency for problem solving.

It will be argued that feats (optional, not guaranteed, competes with needed ability advancement) and backgrounds make up for this. But all characters get those, all are equally available, and those are all narrow-niche-inflexable.

By contrast the "too much" problem solving casters have one main class ability, spellcasting, which is adaptable and modular. Say the fighter class got 'stunts', a per day/known resource like sorc casting but focused on a mix of combat tricks an non-combat "this type of problem gets solved" things. Suddenly making new stunts is as easy as making new spells, and fighters can get the sort of splat expansion that casters do. Also, non-combat problem solving is baked into the class just like the casters.

It isn't just that a subset of classes dominates the non combat problem solving, it is that that same subset can chose the approach through spell section and that furthermore, having avoided the resource attrition of combat they get to undertake combat with more resources than they otherwise would. ( I suppose just stating this, not aiming it at you). If the abilities that enabled the party to circumvent encounters or to long rest more easily were abilities on the classes that were not reliant on long rest resources thather than on the classes that were then I would be a lot more chilled about it. If a player felt screwed by a shift in balance caused by their abilities allowing fewer encounters per day they could swap it out - making it more of a team game.

The idea of stunts is cool, at least in principle. Depends on execution I guess. There is still the problem that some people play a fighter because they want to fight. They want to play a character that uses violence as a universal problem solvent. I think it goes deeper than can be solved by a session zero or a trite "talk to the DM" instruction though. If we are accepting that at some tables people should not play the class they want, then there is certainly something off about the game.

[Monster Manuel]

What the game is missing is different ways for a warrior to interact to stop spell effects working - they are passive subjects to magic rather than it being an engaging back and forth.

I totally agree with this sentiment, and I think that this is the way to go about fixing the imbalance between higher-level casters and martials, or at least part of it.

Part of my problem with this is similar to lots of fixes that people suggest...how to incorporate the fix elegantly into the system as it is designed, without having to re-balance whole swaths of the game? Since, given the realities of what will and will not be considered "errata", there's almost no chance of getting a major adjustment to the power level balance in this edition. They can't re-write the players' handbook, so any correction to the issue has to be something that can be easily plugged into the existing system, rather than a total overhaul, and that's hard to do.

This is what I love about the Shield Master feat, as a side note. The bonus action attack is what gets the most attention, but letting the character use their shield as an evasion-like reaction to AoE is exactly the kind of fun thing that martials need to put them on more even footing with the casters. We need more of this.

One thing I've added to my games is tied to the Minor Properties of magic items in the DMG. I added a minor property called "spellbreaker", which lets an attuned wielder make a melee attack as a reaction, 1x per long rest, against the spell's save DC+2 to cancel the effect. It's not too far ahead of some of the better minor properties (free language proficiency, detect a certain kind of enenmy, +2 initiative). It makes absolutely no real word sense ("Did you just...CUT THROUGH that spell...with your axe?"), but it's fun in a silly anime-like way that gels with the play-style at my table, and gives the martials a subtle boost. Can the casters take this just as easily? Sure, but it means they have to devote one of their attunement slots to a melee weapon, which they have to be wielding, which is not optimal for most casters, and the vast majority of martials will be better at hitting things with a melee weapon than an equivalent caster.

Another thing to consider, it seems that the issue with high-level spells is often coming down to a handful of top-tier spells, not all spells at level 6 and higher. A possible fix that is easy to implement and doesn't have so many long-range impacts might be to just change the casting time on the specific, problematic spells. Banishment now has a 2-round casting time, rather than 1 action. You get the same sort of impact that the OP wanted, without making a sweeping change to the casting system in general; just a relatively small tweak to some existing spells.

The rules as written kind of do this for some spells already...they could be made to be more plot points than fire-and-forget spells. Find Familiar has a 1 hour casting time, and expensive material components which must be obtained, and has an effectively permanent duration once cast...it's kind of like a class ability/quest reward hidden inside of a lvl 1 spell (the "quest" being a lvl-1-appropriate version of "acquire 10gp worth of rare herbs"). The "quest" is exactly as difficult and meaningful as the DM chooses to make it, depending on what herbs are necessary and how hard they are to get. Do something similar for Clone...you need a 2000GP "vessel" to grow the clone inside of. The rules are intentionally vague as to what this vessel has to be; a DM interested in making this more of an event than a spell can put further limitations on the nature of the vessel, and make getting it a non-trivial challenge. It's still a wizard-only spell, but setting up the requirements to cast it can be a plot point, depending on how it is played, with no changes necessary to the spell at all.

You could feel free to put further limitations on any other spell...Forcecage too strong? Maybe make it require a mithril bar, forged in a particular furnace in the Astral Plane, as a focus. A non-caster could end the spell by disarming the caster of their focus. Minor change, rules-wise, but has a huge impact in playstyle possibilities.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think perspectives may differ a little depending on game styles. If the problem is that there are 1200 hostile and armed tribesmen between where you are and where you need to be, then this is a problem that can be solved by teleport or cutting a bloody swathe through them on a 4 day march. To me it is just a situation, an obstacle to be overcome and isn't a "combat challenge" or a "non-combat challenge".

I find a lot of objectives are. You need to steal a secret ritual from a wizard? You can solve it in a non combat way through dimension door, grab the papers and leave. You can also have a combat solution which is to kill everything in the tower, grab the ritual, burn the tower down, kill all the witnesses...

I think the issue is some PCs have too great a capacity to solve problems, invalidating what other classes bring.

Sure, but what kind of obstacles can a Fighter deal with, uniquely?

Even that 4 day march is 300 enemies per day. Even if they die with a single hit of 15 damage-killing about 4 enemies per turn-the Wizard can deal with up to 64 enemies in one.



There is still the problem that some people play a fighter because they want to fight. They want to play a character that uses violence as a universal problem solvent. I think it goes deeper than can be solved by a session zero or a trite "talk to the DM" instruction though. If we are accepting that at some tables people should not play the class they want, then there is certainly something off about the game.

I agree.


A Fighter that only wants to fight should be roughly as effective as a Wizard who only wants to fight.

A Fighter that only wants to solve problems out of combat should be just as effective as a Wizard who wants to do the same.



Or, at least, the sum of both of those comparisons should be equal (that is, how unbalanced a Fighter is at combat should be a net 0 when compared to how unbalanced it is out of combat).

However, the second bullet is definitely not true, and the first bullet is something I dispute as also untrue (in favor of the Wizard).



It IS a team-based game, and everyone's participating towards the same goals, but nobody writes up a Batman character just to end up as someone's Robin, and there's a reason that the Hulk is mad that everyone only wants him because he's big and dumb (Thor: Ragnarok). And besides being better at melee combat (in a system where ranged combat is almost always better), and being able to take a hit, I just don't see much benefit to playing a Fighter. There's a REASON to be a Fighter (I want to be a swashbuckling knight that hits things very hard), but is that a BENEFIT (that is, did your choice actually help the team over a different one)?

[Sigreid]

These discussions always just make me glad the people on them aren't the ones in charge of the game.

[deljzc]

I just read through the entire list of 6th level spells.

I find that most of the high damage spells that throw off equality to martial classes involve all VSM casting components.

There is something to be said that maybe D&D in general doesn't pay enough attention to this. Similar to how we are talking about multi-action casting, it might make sense for spells using all VSM just take longer or have some penalty to initiative.

And while everyone agrees micromanaging component costs and availability is a pain, they do provide another aspect of restriction on high level spells.

It's just a thought to add in the scheme of things.

[Man_Over_Game]

These discussions always just make me glad the people on them aren't the ones in charge of the game.

Why's that?

[Cikomyr2]

These discussions always just make me glad the people on them aren't the ones in charge of the game.

If you have an opinion to contribute, then contribute it. Don't just make snide comments about other posters from the sidelines.

[Misterwhisper]

If you have an opinion to contribute, then contribute it. Don't just make snide comments about other posters from the sidelines.

{Scrubbed}

[LordCdrMilitant]

Honestly, I think Chain Lightning is probably one of the worst ways of spending a level 6 slot, but it still seems to surpass most things a Fighter could do.

It seems like a problem on two fronts.

Mages seem to solve problems out of combat better than Fighters.

Mages seem to solve problems in combat better than Fighters.

Even if the Wizard spends his combat resources for non-combat stuff, it'd be because it was more valuable to do so (like through your teleport example).

How much fighting would it take for the Fighter to outpace a Wizard, past level 5? A lot, I'd reckon. I guess you could convert all of the spell slots into damage, then have the Fighter match that, assuming about an Action Surge once every 4 combat rounds, after subtracting the Wizard's cantrips damage per round after the spell slots are spent.

I could probably make something up to guess that later today

I already compared the Sorcerer V. Fighter, [Someone else has also run a similar comparison], and we came to different conclusions.

The most single-target damage in a round from Sorcerer is Twinned Level 9 Disintegrate + Quickened Firebolt [38d6+80+4d10], at least out of the core PHB on first pass. Wizard doesn't do better than this I think, because Wizard can't twin or quicken spells. Maybe something with a Simulacrum will get there.
A Fighter with PAM & GWM [which comes online at level 6 or level 4 if human] makes 4+1 attacks for 4d10+1d4+75 [102] damage

On Round 1:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does her thing for 256 damage, spending 12/20 Sorcery Points. We'll assume she converted her low level otherwise useless slots to extra sorcery points as necessary ahead of time.
Sorcerer is leading by 52 damage

Round 2:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does level 8 Twinned Disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 232 damage, spending 11 Sorcery Points. All but 1 of her level 1 slots have been turned into sorcery points.
Sorcerer is leading by 84 damage

Round 3:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer could do a level 7 twinned disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 208 damage, spending 10 Sorcery Points. She spends all of her level 2 slots, her last level 1 slot, and one of her level 3 slots for this.
Sorcerer is leading by 190 damage

Round 4:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does the same thing as last turn. This costs her remaining 2 level 3 spell slots, and one level 4 spell slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 298 damage

Round 5:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 380 damage

Round 6:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot. She has exactly 1 level 5 spell slot remaining.
Sorcerer is leading by 464 damage

Round 7:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer liquidates her last level 5 slot for sorcery points to twin Firebolt, which is more than any other available level 5 non-sustained spell [48 damage].
Sorcerer is leading by 410 damage.

Round 8:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 356 damage

Round 9:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 302 damage

Round 10:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 248 damage

Round 11:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 194 damage

Round 12:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer has exhaust all her sorcery points and is on plain Firebolt for 4d10 [24]
Sorcerer is leading by 116 damage

Round 13:
Same as 11.
Sorcerer is leading by 38 damage

Round 14:
Same as 11.
Fighter is leading by 40 damage

Now, this isn't actually the highest total damage that could be done, but it's the fastest that damage could be done [and I think the longest the lead sticks] that doesn't include sustained spells [which are harder to factor for]

Sorcerer could be more efficient though, and drop the quickened firebolts to use those points for twinned firebolts later [144 more damage for the day, but she loses the damage lead on round 11 instead of round 14]. She could also liquidate her entire spell list for sorcery points to twin firebolts with, which would actually do more total damage over the adventuring day than the twinned disintegrates [3456 total damage versus 1392 total damage out of the resources spent], but she'd never actually exceed Fighter in damage in any turn.


Anyway, 14 rounds is about 2 combats, maybe 1 and a half combats, in the day. If, between any combats, a 1 hour rest is taken, the extra 2 actions surges add 204 damage to the Fighter's damage on the first two turns after the rest. One short rest allows the fighter to deal the same amount of damage as the last 5 of the Sorcerer's turns, causing Fighter to take the lead on turn 8


It's also worth mention that I did not include any subclass features [in part because I don't know all the subclasses], but Fighter could add: 6d12 [42] damage from Maneuvers or 45+3d10 [63] damage for Fighting Spirit+Rapid Strike. Sorcerer can get 5 more damage per turn from Draconic Heritage, I think.

[Man_Over_Game]

I already compared the Sorcerer V. Fighter, [as has somebody else], and we came to different conclusions.

The most single-target damage in a round from Sorcerer is Twinned Level 9 Disintegrate + Quickened Firebolt [38d6+80+4d10], at least out of the core PHB on first pass. Wizard doesn't do better than this I think, because Wizard can't twin or quicken spells. Maybe something with a Simulacrum will get there.
A Fighter with PAM & GWM [which comes online at level 6 or level 4 if human] makes 4+1 attacks for 4d10+1d4+75 [102] damage

On Round 1:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does her thing for 256 damage, spending 12/20 Sorcery Points. We'll assume she converted her low level otherwise useless slots to extra sorcery points as necessary ahead of time.
Sorcerer is leading by 52 damage

Round 2:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does level 8 Twinned Disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 232 damage, spending 11 Sorcery Points. All but 1 of her level 1 slots have been turned into sorcery points.
Sorcerer is leading by 84 damage

Round 3:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer could do a level 7 twinned disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 208 damage, spending 10 Sorcery Points. She spends all of her level 2 slots, her last level 1 slot, and one of her level 3 slots for this.
Sorcerer is leading by 190 damage

Round 4:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does the same thing as last turn. This costs her remaining 2 level 3 spell slots, and one level 4 spell slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 298 damage

Round 5:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 380 damage

Round 6:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot. She has exactly 1 level 5 spell slot remaining.
Sorcerer is leading by 464 damage

Round 7:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer liquidates her last level 5 slot for sorcery points to twin Firebolt, which is more than any other available level 5 non-sustained spell [48 damage].
Sorcerer is leading by 410 damage.

Round 8:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 356 damage

Round 9:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 302 damage

Round 10:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 248 damage

Round 10:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 194 damage

Round 11:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer has exhaust all her sorcery points and is on plain Firebolt for 4d10 [24]
Sorcerer is leading by 116 damage

Round 12:
Same as 11.
Sorcerer is leading by 38 damage

Round 13:
Same as 11.
Fighter is leading by 40 damage

Now, this isn't actually the highest total damage that could be done, but it's the fastest that damage could be done [and I think the longest the lead sticks] that doesn't include sustained spells [which are harder to factor for]

Sorcerer could be more efficient though, and drop the quickened firebolts to use those points for twinned firebolts later [144 more damage for the day, but she loses the damage lead on round 11 instead of round 13]. She could also liquidate her entire spell list for sorcery points to twin firebolts with, which would actually do more total damage over the adventuring day than the twinned disintegrates [3456 total damage versus 1392 total damage out of the resources spent], but she'd never actually exceed Fighter in damage in any turn.

That's wonderful!

A terrible outcome, but a great job in your analysis!

It really doesn't look good for the Fighter, although Short Rests would help (reducing the number of rounds by 2 for each Short Rest).

But regardless of how many Short Rests there are, Attacking a 1500 HP target for ~10 rounds isn't going to be a realistic scenario, and one that greatly favors the Fighter. A more realistic one would be several waves of enemies, which will definitely favor the caster, since casters become more efficient the more targets there are while martials do not.

Even in the situation where Fighters have the most going for them, they still seem to fall short. That's not even considering the damage typing of their weapon vs. Disintegrate and how relevant that'd be against a 1500 HP boss.

Of course, that's a level 20 analysis, and might be a bit extreme. I might work on something on a smaller scale (levels 11, 7, 3) just to rule out the fact that "20 is a good level for casters".

[LordCdrMilitant]

That's wonderful!

A terrible outcome, but a great job in your analysis!

It really doesn't look good for the Fighter, although Short Rests would help (reducing the number of rounds by 2 for each Short Rest).

But regardless of how many Short Rests there are, Attacking a 1500 HP target for ~10 rounds isn't going to be a realistic scenario, and one that greatly favors the Fighter. A more realistic one would be several waves of enemies, which will definitely favor the caster, since casters become more efficient the more targets there are while martials do not.

Even in the situation where Fighters have the most going for them, they still seem to fall short. That's not even considering the damage typing of their weapon vs. Disintegrate and how relevant that'd be against a 1500 HP boss.

Of course, that's a level 20 analysis, and might be a bit extreme. I might work on something on a smaller scale (levels 11, 7, 3) just to rule out the fact that "20 is a good level for casters".

Huh. I came to the opposite conclusion, that it didn't look good for Sorcerer.

It takes 14 rounds for Sorcerer to fall behind in the damage race if she's set on doing the most damage quickly rather than most damage total [since she doesn't win the endurance damage contest in any scenario], which is only about 2 average-length encounters, but she's actually out of useful things to do after round 6 and is just losing ground on her established early lead from being able to Twin Disintegrate for longer than Fighter can Action Surge in the early rounds.

[JackPhoenix]

The most single-target damage in a round from Sorcerer is Twinned Level 9 Disintegrate + Quickened Firebolt [38d6+80+4d10], at least out of the core PHB on first pass. Wizard doesn't do better than this I think, because Wizard can't twin or quicken spells.

Sorcerer can't do that either, because he can't cast Disintegrate with his action when he cast anything, including a cantrip, with his bonus action. It's either twinned Disintegrate and nothing else (well, I guess you can use BA to make attacks with Spiritual Weapon or Flaming Sphere, but that'll cost you one turn to set up), or quickened Disintegrate and twinned Fire Bolt.


Even in the situation where Fighters have the most going for them, they still seem to fall short. That's not even considering the damage typing of their weapon vs. Disintegrate and how relevant that'd be against a 1500 HP boss.

You mean that boss (let's ingore that nothing has 1500 hp, toughest things has less than half of that) that will most likely ignore the Disintegrate outright through high save bonus combined with spell resistance and/or Legendary Resistance, while still taking at least some damage from the fighter, who, even if he's got to do against high AC, can expect at least some of his attacks will hit every turn?

[47Ace]

I already compared the Sorcerer V. Fighter, [Someone else has also run a similar comparison], and we came to different conclusions.

The most single-target damage in a round from Sorcerer is Twinned Level 9 Disintegrate + Quickened Firebolt [38d6+80+4d10], at least out of the core PHB on first pass. Wizard doesn't do better than this I think, because Wizard can't twin or quicken spells. Maybe something with a Simulacrum will get there.
A Fighter with PAM & GWM [which comes online at level 6 or level 4 if human] makes 4+1 attacks for 4d10+1d4+75 [102] damage

On Round 1:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does her thing for 256 damage, spending 12/20 Sorcery Points. We'll assume she converted her low level otherwise useless slots to extra sorcery points as necessary ahead of time.
Sorcerer is leading by 52 damage

Round 2:
Fighter Action Surges for 204 damage.
Sorcerer does level 8 Twinned Disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 232 damage, spending 11 Sorcery Points. All but 1 of her level 1 slots have been turned into sorcery points.
Sorcerer is leading by 84 damage

Round 3:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer could do a level 7 twinned disintegrate + Quick Firebolt for 208 damage, spending 10 Sorcery Points. She spends all of her level 2 slots, her last level 1 slot, and one of her level 3 slots for this.
Sorcerer is leading by 190 damage

Round 4:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does the same thing as last turn. This costs her remaining 2 level 3 spell slots, and one level 4 spell slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 298 damage

Round 5:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot.
Sorcerer is leading by 380 damage

Round 6:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer does a level 6 twinned disintegrate + quick firebolt for 184 damage and 9 sorc points. This costs her 1 level 4 slot and 1 level 5 slot. She has exactly 1 level 5 spell slot remaining.
Sorcerer is leading by 464 damage

Round 7:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer liquidates her last level 5 slot for sorcery points to twin Firebolt, which is more than any other available level 5 non-sustained spell [48 damage].
Sorcerer is leading by 410 damage.

Round 8:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 356 damage

Round 9:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 302 damage

Round 10:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 248 damage

Round 11:
Same as 7.
Sorcerer is leading by 194 damage

Round 12:
Fighter Attacks Normally for 102 damage.
Sorcerer has exhaust all her sorcery points and is on plain Firebolt for 4d10 [24]
Sorcerer is leading by 116 damage

Round 13:
Same as 11.
Sorcerer is leading by 38 damage

Round 14:
Same as 11.
Fighter is leading by 40 damage

Now, this isn't actually the highest total damage that could be done, but it's the fastest that damage could be done [and I think the longest the lead sticks] that doesn't include sustained spells [which are harder to factor for]

Sorcerer could be more efficient though, and drop the quickened firebolts to use those points for twinned firebolts later [144 more damage for the day, but she loses the damage lead on round 11 instead of round 14]. She could also liquidate her entire spell list for sorcery points to twin firebolts with, which would actually do more total damage over the adventuring day than the twinned disintegrates [3456 total damage versus 1392 total damage out of the resources spent], but she'd never actually exceed Fighter in damage in any turn.


Anyway, 14 rounds is about 2 combats, maybe 1 and a half combats, in the day. If, between any combats, a 1 hour rest is taken, the extra 2 actions surges add 204 damage to the Fighter's damage on the first two turns after the rest. One short rest allows the fighter to deal the same amount of damage as the last 5 of the Sorcerer's turns, causing Fighter to take the lead on turn 8


OK so before getting into the question of accuracy of GWM lets do some quick math 5-6 combats a day at 3 rounds a combat gives us 15 to 18 rounds of combat in a day means that the fighter who's main advantage over a magic user is signal target damage is only pulling ahead in the 14th round of combat and give that you are assuming melee combat probably took more damage doing it. That's a nice rundown of some of the problems with high level magic in D&D.

I am not sure where you are getting your combat length data from. From what I have seen from a data dump from a spread sheet recording several levels of combat 3 rounds is about average and that is consistent with the monster design guidelines in the DMG.

[Man_Over_Game]

Huh. I came to the opposite conclusion, that it didn't look good for the Sorcerer.

Not to sound rude, but...how?

I mean:

Single target (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Melee as consistent as Range (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Damage type is not relevant (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Miss chance is not relevant (In favor of Fighter)



Results in the Fighter doing it better after [13- 2*# of Short Rests]
Assuming about 1-2 Short Rests, that's 10 rounds. 10 rounds of combat before a Fighter starts doing it better.

If we reversed the tables, and made a scenario that strongly favored the Sorcerer, would it be roughly the same?


You mean that boss (let's ingore that nothing has 1500 hp, toughest things has less than half of that) that will most likely ignore the Disintegrate outright through high save bonus combined with spell resistance and/or Legendary Resistance, while still taking at least some damage from the fighter, who, even if he's got to do against high AC, can expect at least some of his attacks will hit every turn?

But you also don't acknowledge a lot of the other things that favor the Fighter (like the lower HP overall of the boss, or the fact that a level 20 boss would likely have resistance to weapon damage).

If we add another factor that is strictly in-favor of the Fighter through x3 legendary saves, and assume the caster naturally misses once, the Fighter gets 4 turns to himself. The Sorcerer would catch back up on Round 8 or so and fall back down on Round 13.

And you're right that the boss would have significantly less HP than 1500, but assuming a DM would allow a lesser HP boss and still have x3 legendary saves against a single caster is kinda BS. Telling a single caster that they can't participate until the 4th round is garbage. Telling a group of casters that they can't participate until the 2nd or 3rd round is acceptable, but that would mean the Fighter would once again fall behind.

I want to reiterate this, since this hasn't been addressed, but this scenario is entirely in favor of the Fighter. Almost every single factor in play is something that benefits the Fighter over the Sorcerer.

[JackPhoenix]

Not to sound rude, but...how?

I mean:
Single target (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Melee as consistent as Range (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Damage type is not relevant (Strongly in favor of Fighter)
Miss chance is not relevant (In favor of Fighter)

Results in the Fighter doing it better after [13- 2*# of Short Rests] Assuming about 1-2 Short Rests, that's 10 rounds.

10 rounds of combat before a Fighter starts doing it better.

If we reversed the tables, and made a scenario that strongly favored the Sorcerer, would it be roughly the same?

You mean like all saves fail (strongly in favor of sorcerer)
Enemy has no access to Counterspell (strongly in favor of sorcerer)
Damage type is not relevant (more in favor of sorcerer than fighter in any case, as very few things resist magic weapons which are pretty much a given at level 20, while a lot of thing is immune or resistant to fire, making Fire Bolt less than ideal. Or many other forms of energy damage, really)
Miss chance is not relevant (favors sorcerer more strongly than fighter if he's relying on attack roll spells, as fighters gets multiple attacks meaning he's likely to do at least some damage even if he misses with one or more attacks and has easier ways of getting bonus to attack and damage from magic items, or advantage)
Oh, and the fighter can do pretty much the same thing at range (and longer range than the sorcerer) if he picks a ranged weapon, with somewhat lower base damage being offset by higher accuracy, if that's relevant.

[47Ace]

Snip

Miss chance is not relevant (favors sorcerer more strongly than fighter if he's relying on attack roll spells, as fighters gets multiple attacks meaning he's likely to do at least some damage even if he misses with one or more attacks and has easier ways of getting bonus to attack and damage from magic items, or advantage)

Snip



We are talking about average damage so number of attacks meaning you will do at least something is not relevant as that doesn't affect averages. Also we are assuming GWM's -5 to hit so disadvantage fighter.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Sorcerer can't do that either, because he can't cast Disintegrate with his action when he cast anything, including a cantrip, with his bonus action. It's either twinned Disintegrate and nothing else, or quickened Disintegrate and twinned Fire Bolt.

You're right. I misinterpreted that rules. In that case, Fighter takes the lead on turn 11, not turn 14.




OK so before getting into the question of accuracy of GWM lets do some quick math 5-6 combats a day at 3 rounds a combat gives us 15 to 18 rounds of combat in a day means that the fighter who's main advantage over a magic user is signal target damage is only pulling ahead in the 14th round of combat and give that you are assuming melee combat probably took more damage doing it. That's a nice rundown of some of the problems with high level magic in D&D.

I am not sure where you are getting your combat length data from. From what I have seen from a data dump from a spread sheet recording several levels of combat 3 rounds is about average and that is consistent with the monster design guidelines in the DMG.

Accuracy is pretty hard to compute, since they hit different things about the target.
GWM does worse than not doing so when the target has an AC 21 or higher, assuming the case of the fighter using a D10 damage weapon. The lower the weapon die, the higher the AC you want to use GWM against. Using GWM, this is going to reduce the fighter's overall damage to between 3/4 to 1/3 of the generalized potential damage per turn [102]

Disintegrate forces a Dex saving throw vs. DC19, and does nothing on a passed save. This is really all or nothing, and legendary saves can make it way worse. If the monster has 3 legendary saves, the Sorcerer loses 375 damage outright [she loses her three most powerful spell hits to Legendary Saves, it doesn't matter what order she fires in] followed by reduction of damage based on the save value of the target, which covers a basically identical accuracy range to GWM fighter. They hit different numbers though, so some monster could be easy for the fighter to hit but likely to be missed by the disintegrate, or vice versa.
Kind of out of my ass, just based on proficiency numbers, for an all armor no dex the fighter's accuracy disadvantage would probably be around +8, for all Dex no AC the sorcerer's accuracy disadvantage is around +6.

If we consider the target taking it's legendary saving throws, then the Sorcerer never leads the fighter.

[Man_Over_Game]

You mean like all saves fail (strongly in favor of sorcerer)
Enemy has no access to Counterspell (strongly in favor of sorcerer)
Damage type is not relevant (more in favor of sorcerer than fighter in any case, as very few things resist magic weapons which are pretty much a given at level 20, while a lot of thing is immune or resistant to fire, making Fire Bolt less than ideal. Or many other forms of energy damage, really)
Miss chance is not relevant (favors sorcerer more strongly than fighter if he's relying on attack roll spells, as fighters gets multiple attacks meaning he's likely to do at least some damage even if he misses with one or more attacks and has easier ways of getting bonus to attack and damage from magic items, or advantage)
Oh, and the fighter can do pretty much the same thing at range (and longer range than the sorcerer) if he picks a ranged weapon, with somewhat lower base damage being offset by higher accuracy, if that's relevant.
You mentioned saves failing and hit chance, but I meant those as both being the same things. A Fighter is generally going to have a harder time hitting with a -5 to hit relying on GWM. If they both hit 60% of the time, they're going to deal 60% of their damage over the course of the fight. The only time more attacks would matter is if you were picking off lighter targets (and more targets is in favor of the Sorcerer). Consistency feels better, but it isn't inherently more effective.

The difference between using Fire Bolt and another cantrip is only about 4 damage per casting.

On a miss, caster spells often have a half-damage clause, where the Fighter has no such clause. Assuming a 60% save chance, halved on a save, it deals 90% of its full damage while a Fighter would deal 60% of its full damage.

Being limited to ranged attacks would mean a -1 damage per attack and no additional 1d4 attack. That accounts for about a 20% damage reduction.


But even ignoring all that, we're still looking at this as a massive HP pool with a single target. An unrealistic, hypothetical situation that doesn't accurately estimate what happens at most tables.

This is a hypothetical situation that should be showing off how overpowered the Fighter is, and it's failing to impress. If we cut that total in half to make a half-dozen additional targets, like a real encounter would have, it'd be so one-sided that calculating the difference wouldn't be worthwhile.

Disintegrate is a level 6 spell, being cast as a level 9 to keep it at the same level of power, relevant only because there aren't any more powerful single target spells for the 6 character levels it'd take you to go from spell level 6 to 9, without considering the fact that much of its power is probably spent on the 'disintegrating' factor and the lack of halving-on-a-miss.




That'd be like saying a Sorcerer could keep up with a level 7 Fighter by just casting an upcasted Catapult every turn. Catapult isn't the defining power of a level 7 Sorcerer.

[LordCdrMilitant]

You mentioned saves failing and hit chance, but I meant those as both being the same things. A Fighter is generally going to have a harder time hitting with a -5 to hit relying on GWM. If they both hit 60% of the time, they're going to deal 60% of their damage over the course of the fight. The only time more attacks would matter is if you were picking off lighter targets (and more targets is in favor of the Sorcerer). Consistency feels better, but it isn't inherently more effective.

The difference between using Fire Bolt and another cantrip is only about 4 damage per casting.

On a miss, caster spells often have a half-damage clause, where the Fighter has no such clause. Assuming a 60% save chance, halved on a save, it deals 90% of its full damage while a Fighter would deal 60% of its full damage.

Being limited to ranged attacks would mean a -1 damage per attack and no additional 1d4 attack. That accounts for about a 20% damage reduction.

Disintegrate doesn't have a half damage clause, so it just fails. The ones that do don't come close to the fighter's damage output on a all-hit or half-hit basis, so it doesn't really matter.


We are talking about average damage so number of attacks meaning you will do at least something is not relevant as that doesn't affect averages. Also we are assuming GWM's -5 to hit so disadvantage fighter.

It's not significant.
The Sorcerer's save DC is 19. Ranges of saving throws are for the most part between +0 and +11. Best case is 90% accuracy, worst case is 35% accuracy.
Fighter's BAB is +6. Ranges of AC are for the most part from 10 to 20. Best case is 85% accuracy, worst case is also 35% accuracy.

If we drop GWM and just plok them, Fighter damage drops drastically but accuracy skyrockets.

[JackPhoenix]

On a miss, caster spells often have a half-damage clause, where the Fighter has no such clause. Assuming a 60% save chance, halved on a save, it deals 90% of its full damage while a Fighter would deal 60% of its full damage.

We're talking specifically about Disintegrate, which does nothing on save.


Being limited to ranged attacks would mean a -1 damage per attack and no additional 1d4 attack. That accounts for about a 20% damage reduction.

Or -2 damage per attack, but the additional attack at d6, although you won't outrange the sorcerer that way, for the same 2-feat cost as GWM/PAM. And if magic items are in play, remember that +x from ranged weapon and ammo stacks.


The Sorcerer's save DC is 19. Ranges of saving throws are for the most part between +0 and +11. Best case is 90% accuracy, worst case is 35% accuracy [7 or less hits].
Fighter's BAB is +6. Ranges of AC are for the most part from 10 to 20. Best case is 85% accuracy, worst case is also 35% accuracy [].

Archery FS adds +2 to hit, and crits increase damage from attacks a bit, though 0.275 dmg per 1d10 or 0.175 dmg per 1d6 attack is mostly irrelevant.

[Man_Over_Game]

We're talking specifically about Disintegrate, which does nothing on save.

It is used as a reference, not as a definition.

The majority of spell effects are not like Disintegrate, just as the majority of martials are not level 20 PAM GWM Fighters.

Additionally, the majority of encounters involve multiple enemies rather than singular bosses.

I'm saying that it shouldn't be something that's discredited just because it's not relevant in this one situation. If anything, telling a caster that he has to upcast a spell by 2 spell levels to stay relevant in a very specific combat scenario is enough of a reason to say it's very tilted against them.

Or, put another way, Disintegrate is one of the worst spells in the game, so calling it an average would be wrong.

[LordCdrMilitant]

This is a hypothetical situation that should be showing off how overpowered the Fighter is, and it's failing to impress. If we cut that total in half to make a half-dozen additional targets, like a real encounter would have, it'd be so one-sided that calculating the difference wouldn't be worthwhile.

Disintegrate is a level 6 spell, being cast as a level 9 to keep it at the same level of power, relevant only because there aren't any more powerful single target spells for the 6 character levels it'd take you to go from spell level 6 to 9, without considering the fact that much of its power is probably spent on the 'disintegrating' factor and the lack of halving-on-a-miss.

That'd be like saying a Sorcerer could keep up with a level 7 Fighter by just casting an upcasted Catapult every turn. Catapult isn't the defining power of a level 7 Sorcerer.

Twin Disintegrate is the highest single-target damage output per turn considering only BRB spells, because I don't have all the expansion splatbooks.

For Level 9 Slots:
Twin Disintegrate does 232 at level 9, and drops to 160 at level 6
Meteor Storm does 160
Twin Finger of Death does 160
Incendiary Cloud does 50
Sunburst does 48
Prismatic Spray does 40

Literally the only competitive damage spell with Twin Disintegrate is Meteor Storm, because it's a huge blast and is cheaper, but loses a massive amount of damage.

[JackPhoenix]

Twin Disintegrate is the highest single-target damage output per turn considering only BRB spells, because I don't have all the expansion splatbooks.

Twin Disintegrate, by definition, is not single target damage, as it requires two different targets.

[Man_Over_Game]

Twin Disintegrate is the highest single-target damage output per turn considering only BRB spells, because I don't have all the expansion splatbooks.

For Level 9 Slots:
Twin Disintegrate does 232
Meteor Storm does 160
Twin Finger of Death does 160
Incendiary Cloud does 50
Sunburst does 48
Prismatic Spray does 40

I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm saying that basing a caster's value off of one of their worse spells (best in the Single-Target category, worse overall) doesn't really determine the value of a caster.

That is, the caster's worst is keeping up with the Fighter's best?

That's a level 6 spell we're talking about, at a level when level 9 spells are available. How much value do you think is lost when upcasting by 6 caster levels' worth of power?

[Cikomyr2]

{Scrub the post, scrube the quote}

{Scrubbed}

First of all, how does the lenght of someone's experience on the forum important in the worth of their contribution? People can join yesterday, and be as worthy to listen as someone who has been here 10 years.

Corrolarily, someone can say inane things either way too.

Second, what do you know of the reason I'm Cikomyr2? You asked me?

{Scrubbed}

[LordCdrMilitant]

Twin Disintegrate, by definition, is not single target damage, as it requires two different targets.

Oh yeah, I forgot that. I don't usually think about this, because I don't usually play damage source casters and leave that to people with pointy sticks.


I recant my previous considerations: The equation now looks like
Round 1:
Meteor Storm: 160
Action Surge: 204
Fighter leads by 44

Round 2:
Disintegrate 8: 104
Action Surge: 204
Fighter leads by 248

Round 3:
Disintegrate 7: 92
Standard Attack: 102
Fighter Leads by 258

At this point, there is no spell option that will do more than 102 damage on average, so the Fighter is always doing more single target damage.



I'm not saying that it isn't. I'm saying that basing a caster's value off of one of their worse spells (best in the Single-Target category, worse overall) doesn't really determine the value of a caster.

That is, the caster's worst is keeping up with the Fighter's best? That's a level 6 spell we're talking about, at a level when level 9 spells are available. How much power do you think is lost when upcasting by 6 caster levels' worth of power?

Well, 44 points of damage and 4 points with 40ft radius blast.

Once you're on level 8 spells, though, Disintegrate is actually your best damage dealer. The at-level blast options are in the range of 50 damage.

Yeah, it's not caster's best, because caster's best doesn't do damage. Caster's best is: Wish once per day, followed probably by Teleport/DDoor to put Fighter into close quarters combat the rest of the time.

Disintegrate definitely isn't worst overall. Worse than it in combat IMO are:
Time Stop [can't be used to shoot, can't be used to buff, can't be used to debuff, can't target your friends, basically an expensive DDoor]
PW: Kill [Cast Meteor Storm instead to kill low health targets. PW:Kill is stupidly expensive for what it does when you get it]
Dominate Monster [Theoretically, this could be awesome. Theoretically. I've yet to have any 5e character succeed with any spell that has an effect like this.]
Sunburst
Incendiary Cloud
Earthquake
Fire Storm
These 4 are low damage blast effects. Theoretically effective if you hit a lot of people, mostly questionable because it won't even clear out chaff and D&D has sudden critical existence failure.

[JackPhoenix]

Oh yeah, I forgot that. I don't usually think about this, because I don't usually play damage source casters and leave that to people with pointy sticks.


I recant my previous considerations: The equation now looks like
Round 1:
Meteor Storm: 160
Action Surge: 204
Fighter leads by 44

Round 2:
Disintegrate 8: 104
Action Surge: 204
Fighter leads by 248

Round 3:
Disintegrate 7: 92
Standard Attack: 102
Fighter Leads by 258

At this point, there is no spell option that will do more than 102 damage on average, so the Fighter is always doing more single target damage.

If you make it quickened, you can add 22 for Fire Bolt, 27 for fire dragon sorcerers

[47Ace]

OK i found the post about combat length and that data was 4-5 rounds per combat https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/93183/how-many-rounds-does-the-average-combat-encounter-last so that makes a "proper" (read different from the one the OP had almost certainly) adventuring day 20 - 30 rounds. So going back to the detailed example the fighter only exceeded the magic user at doing the fighters thing about half way through the day that is not a good result for the fighter. If we do a scenario involving more then one opponent where the magic user can use their non-crap spells I highly doubt the fighter will be breaking even. With regards to legendary resistances between non save spell and spamming Tasha Hideous Laughter until the LR are gone magic users are not suffering that much and pales in comparison to the trouble melee fighters have with teleport/move legendary actions. Though that last point has more to do with ranged being OP then magic users in particular being OP but magic user are often ranged so it is somewhat relevant.

[47Ace]

Oh yeah, I forgot that. I don't usually think about this, because I don't usually play damage source casters and leave that to people with pointy sticks.

Snip

Yeah, it's not caster's best, because caster's best doesn't do damage. Caster's best is: Wish once per day, followed probably by Teleport/DDoor to put Fighter into close quarters combat the rest of the time.

OK now I am confused, you just spent several post complaining that casters can't be better then fighters at doing the fighters thing and now you are talking about caster have a different role and different strengths. I read the above and go that sounds about right fighters are good at doing damage casters are good at other things that's semi reasonable though probably still in favour of casters given that signal target damage far from even half the game.

[Man_Over_Game]

Once you're on level 8 spells, though, Disintegrate is actually your best damage dealer. The at-level blast options are in the range of 50 damage.

Per target. Horrid Wilting deals 56 damage per target, halves on a save (so deals 90% damage with a 60% miss chance), and hits a 6x6 cube.

I found the most accurate way of calculating the average number of creatures hit by an AoE spell is by finding the square root of the maximum.

Square root of 36 possible targets is 6 targets, dealing a total of 302 damage after accounting for the 60% miss chance.

Disintegrate, with an 8th level spell, would deal about 96 damage with a 100% hit chance, or 58 with a 60% hit chance.

Circumstance matters.

[Trask]

That being said, I’ve been toying with a novel approach to fixing it. Basically, the spell progression follows the normal curve until level 6 (10 spell slots total). After level 6, spells casters don’t get more slots, their slots simply
get more powerful (i.e. they gain a new slot, but lose their lowest level existing slot).

A 7th level wizard has 1 4th level, 3 3rd level, 3 2nd level and 3 1st level slots. A 12th level wizard has 1 6th level, 2 5th level, 3 4th level, 3 3rd level and 2 2nd level slots. You can always cast a spell using a higher level slot, so your Shield spell remains somewhat useful.

You have to be careful with your spells because even at high levels you can run out.

I actually like this a lot! Pretty elegant and very cool way of making the sheer total of spells much lower, reducing that massive amount of versatility and power that casters have over martials, but doesnt just take away the ability to cast bigger hitter spells.

Big fan of this.

[LordCdrMilitant]

[QUOTE=LordCdrMilitant;24426861]
Once you're on level 8 spells, though, Disintegrate is actually your best damage dealer. The at-level blast options are in the range of 50 damage./QUOTE]

Per target. Horrid Wilting deals 56 damage per target, halves on a save (so deals 90% damage with a 60% miss chance), and hits a 6x6 cube.

I found the most accurate way of calculating the average number of creatures hit by an AoE spell is by finding the square root of the maximum.

Square root of 36 targets is 6 targets, dealing a total of 302 damage after accounting for the 60% miss chance.

Disintegrate, with an 8th level spell, would deal about 96 damage with a 100% hit chance, or 58 with a 60% hit chance.

Circumstance matters.

Huh? Why would square root of the maximum be the most accurate way of calculating average number of hit critters? That seems like an odd formulation.
IME, small effects, like 15ft cones and things, are basically single target attacks.
Larger effects, like 30ft radius spheres probably hit between 3 and 6 targets, erring on the side of small.
Very large effects, like Meteor Storm, probably hit everything on the battlefield.

As a player [and as a GM], I usually count secondary target damage from blasts as less valuable than massive directed damage, if it doesn't eliminate the secondary targets.
As a GM, I also try to devalue melee attack power, devalue direct damage, and upvalue tactical mobility and crippling effects, but basically no other GM I know believes this.


OK now I am confused, you just spent several post complaining that casters can't be better then fighters at doing the fighters thing and now you are talking about caster have a different role and different strengths. I read the above and go that sounds about right fighters are good at doing damage casters are good at other things that's semi reasonable though probably still in favour of casters given that signal target damage far from even half the game.

Huh?

My take is that the idea that a caster has a small number of very powerful abilities per day versus a martial's consistent output isn't really substantiated. This would be a fine model if the sorcerer's best could outperform the fighter's best, and then after a a couple of uses of that then fighter's normal was better, but in this case that's not substantiated.

The Sorcerer's best is the "clear everything but the big guys" meteor storm once per day, then kind of adequate disintegrates or weak blasts another 5 times, and then her spells degrade into not really doing anything of significance in the damage realm.

So, since the caster just can't do damage well, her job is support. Buff Fighter, debuff Fighter's enemies, move people around. In this capacity, she's a force multiplier who without a force to multiply has little to contribute. And, because of a number of features of the system, I feel that it's very often that the force multiplier isn't a particularly strong multiplier until the GM creates a specific circumstance for it to come into play.



My complaint isn't that the sorcerer can't be better at the fighter's thing than Fighter. My opinion about rebalancing magic is as follows:
Spells do not naturally scale in effect. Thus, low level spells and spell slots are often of questionable value save a small number of level-independent buffs, mostly just Fly and DDoor. Invisibility/Greater Invisibility are also useful, sometimes, but circumstantially.
Then, as you go up in level, the number of high level slots that are relevant slots goes down. You get more spell slots, but the low level spells slots fade out of utility, and since you have more low level slots than high level ones to replace them, your special abilities also get rarer, basically.
Then, the special abilities don't actually get relatively stronger than they used to be, just rarer. There are a couple of spells that are really, really strong like Wish [which really has no business existing and is well beyond the power curve of spells like PW:Kill and Gate and Time Stop].
Finally, spells have a lot of restrictions that limit how good they are in support or in direct damage.

Thus, I usually feel that spellcasting at higher levels isn't particularly strong and could use a buff. The sweet spot is probably around mid levels when you have both strong effects and lots of slots to use them with.


I think my preferred solution to rebalacing magic would be to:
Scale the low level spell effects naturally without requiring them to be upcast, so that the low level spell slots remain a reasonably relevant source of damage and support into the late game.
Strike out or modify the spells that are built around a very small chance to do something very powerful [Dominate Monster], or just really insane and game warping [Wish, though it's usually banned in games I've played in]
Reduce restrictions on some spells and spellcasting to allow for stacking of effect and abilities.


The idea of having a fixed number of total spell slots, and then just promoting them to higher levels is actually a really good one, the more I think about it.

[Trask]

I think my preferred solution to rebalacing magic would be to:
Scale the low level spell effects naturally without requiring them to be upcast, so that the low level spell slots remain a reasonably relevant source of damage and support into the late game.
Strike out or modify the spells that are built around a very small chance to do something very powerful [Dominate Monster], or just really insane and game warping [Wish, though it's usually banned in games I've played in]
Reduce restrictions on some spells and spellcasting to allow for stacking of effect and abilities.

I like the idea of making low level spell-effects scale better, but how would you actually go about doing that? There are so many spells, with different effects for from being upcast (more damage, more targets, effect lasts longer etc).

[Man_Over_Game]

DMG has assumptions about numbers of targets on page 249. Although if I'm reading it and the spell in question right, for that particular spell it's the same end result, 6 targets.

Not sure how I feel about that.

Using those rules, the 20ft radius sphere of Fireball would hit 4 out of 64 possible targets.

[47Ace]

Snip


That doesn't seem too unreasonable but, a couple of point 1. a 15 foot cone spells should be hitting at least 2 people or you shouldn't cast it and it is balances as such 2. I think given your mention of 10+ round combats that you have much longer adventuring days then are expected by the rules. That makes you opinion make much more sense and I should have probably given more credit to you different circumstances instead of ranting about how long a proper adventuring day is. 3. I think the OP probably plays the common 1 fight a day* which is where spellcasting is too strong. I know the discussion now has noting to do with the OP but, I just wanted to add that context.

*even I run games like this even if I am trying not to I need more encounter planing practice as I am always afraid of TPKing

[LordCdrMilitant]

Not sure how I feel about that.

Using those rules, the 20ft radius sphere of Fireball would hit 4 out of 64 possible targets.

I don't own a DMG, but that sounds pretty reasonable. That's what I expect to hit with a Fireball.


I like the idea of making low level spell-effects scale better, but how would you actually go about doing that? There are so many spells, with different effects for from being upcast (more damage, more targets, effect lasts longer etc).

Case-by-case basis. There's so many different spells.
Taking shots at a couple:
Add damage scaling to Fireball, something like 1d6 per caster level would put it at 20d6 at final level, about 80 damage in a blast, which I think is pretty appropriate for a regular-use blast effect at that point.
Strike the clause limiting the extra action off of Haste to 1 weapon attack. Then it naturally scales as your target for it scales in level.
Set Dispel Magic's effect to Caster Level instead of Spell Level
Add more missiles for Magic Missile, maybe Caster Level missiles fired. [this averages 60 damage, but doesn't miss, which also seems pretty appropriate]
Naturally evolve spells like Fly and Dimension Door to include more targets [maybe 1 per X caster levels].

Scaling with Caster Level is incorporated for Cantrips, so it can be done for other spells, but Cantrips are so weak so they don't really matter.

There's also just a lot of spells that don't really need to exist.

[Pex]

Sorcerer can't do that either, because he can't cast Disintegrate with his action when he cast anything, including a cantrip, with his bonus action. It's either twinned Disintegrate and nothing else (well, I guess you can use BA to make attacks with Spiritual Weapon or Flaming Sphere, but that'll cost you one turn to set up), or quickened Disintegrate and twinned Fire Bolt.



In addition the Sorcerer cannot keep doing it round after round because it takes a bonus action to convert spell slots to sorcery points, so the round he does that he's not casting a Quickened spell. More, it's only one spell slot, so he doesn't have the sorcery points to spend for Twinning a high level spell and Quickening a spell round after round after round. After all of this the Sorcerer has exhausted most of his spells. Short rest. The Fighter can do his thing all over again. The Sorcerer can't.

[patchyman]

I actually like this a lot! Pretty elegant and very cool way of making the sheer total of spells much lower, reducing that massive amount of versatility and power that casters have over martials, but doesnt just take away the ability to cast bigger hitter spells.

Big fan of this.

Thanks! I just need to playtwst this.

[Sigreid]

Why's that?

Because it always seems to revolve around destroying or taking away things my group and myself enjoys. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all what people do in their home games, I just think a lot of these discussions in the game design room would lead to a less fun game for me.

To the person who followed after Man Over Game, the opinion that this kind of thing would be harmful to the fun of myself and my group if implemented universally in the rule book is an opinion contributed, not a snide comment.

[GorogIrongut]

I too am in the camp of those who believe that spellcasting needs to be balanced. And if I were to do it in the context of this thread, I would do it as below. The weakness of this approach is that it would require a rewrite of all spells because they weren't written with this in mind.

Each spell is listed as using the Verbal, Somatic, Material component to cast it. This is all too often ignored or hand-waved. I would argue that it should be more prominent and used the following way would remove the need to list a casting time in 99% of spells.

To successfully cast a spell, the time committed to the casting is determined by the actions required to complete the incantation.
A spell with a Verbal component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite vocalizations to cast the spell.
A spell with a Somatic component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite gestures to cast the spell.
A spell with a Material component to casting takes up an Action to allow for the necessary time to interact with the materials used in the casting.

If a spell requires more than one of the above, then the spell is not cast until all requirements have been met. In the case of a spell with V,S,M you would need to expend an Action and 2 Bonus Actions to complete the casting of the spell. A spell that only has a V or S is castable only as a bonus action.

Spells requiring 2 Bonus Actions or more will be cast over two turns. These turns do not have to be successive but cannot be farther apart than 10 minutes x the caster's spellcasting stat modifier. Casting this way utilizes the players Concentration.



Now they'd just have to go back and reassess the V,S,M of all the spells so that it fit their power level. That and deciding if Sorcerors with Subtle still use the Bonus Action or not (testing for balance... because in most Sorcerors I make I take Subtle as an auto choice. I would personally keep it because Sorcerors will now suffer for having to use a Bonus Action to convert spells to Sorcery Points, so they become Bonus Action intensive).

[deljzc]

I too am in the camp of those who believe that spellcasting needs to be balanced. And if I were to do it in the context of this thread, I would do it as below. The weakness of this approach is that it would require a rewrite of all spells because they weren't written with this in mind.

Each spell is listed as using the Verbal, Somatic, Material component to cast it. This is all too often ignored or hand-waved. I would argue that it should be more prominent and used the following way would remove the need to list a casting time in 99% of spells.

To successfully cast a spell, the time committed to the casting is determined by the actions required to complete the incantation.
A spell with a Verbal component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite vocalizations to cast the spell.
A spell with a Somatic component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite gestures to cast the spell.
A spell with a Material component to casting takes up an Action to allow for the necessary time to interact with the materials used in the casting.

If a spell requires more than one of the above, then the spell is not cast until all requirements have been met. In the case of a spell with V,S,M you would need to expend an Action and 2 Bonus Actions to complete the casting of the spell. A spell that only has a V or S is castable only as a bonus action.

Spells requiring 2 Bonus Actions or more will be cast over two turns. These turns do not have to be successive but cannot be farther apart than 10 minutes x the caster's spellcasting stat modifier. Casting this way utilizes the players Concentration.



Now they'd just have to go back and reassess the V,S,M of all the spells so that it fit their power level. That and deciding if Sorcerors with Subtle still use the Bonus Action or not (testing for balance... because in most Sorcerors I make I take Subtle as an auto choice. I would personally keep it because Sorcerors will now suffer for having to use a Bonus Action to convert spells to Sorcery Points, so they become Bonus Action intensive).

I agree (and have mentioned previously), there needs to be something positive/negative attached to components of a spell. But I just don't understand connecting that to actions/bonus actions or how that would work over multiple rounds of combat.

I think an easier way is to connect VSM to initiative somehow and being some sort of penalty of announcing what spell you intend to cast, but having the possibility of the battlefield changing considerably by the time the spell is cast.

The way it works now, spellcasters wait for their turn, see how the battlefield looks and somehow get off a VSM spell (which they choose right then) and have it go off before anything else happens or the next player/monster turn. There is something counter intuitive to that logic (not that everything in D&D has to be logical).

Certainly with V component (or maybe even V&S) that can work, but spells with material components or more powerful spells logically need longer time to cast. And the game just doesn't adjust for that at all.

[Pex]

I too am in the camp of those who believe that spellcasting needs to be balanced. And if I were to do it in the context of this thread, I would do it as below. The weakness of this approach is that it would require a rewrite of all spells because they weren't written with this in mind.

Each spell is listed as using the Verbal, Somatic, Material component to cast it. This is all too often ignored or hand-waved. I would argue that it should be more prominent and used the following way would remove the need to list a casting time in 99% of spells.

To successfully cast a spell, the time committed to the casting is determined by the actions required to complete the incantation.
A spell with a Verbal component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite vocalizations to cast the spell.
A spell with a Somatic component takes up a Bonus Action to complete the requisite gestures to cast the spell.
A spell with a Material component to casting takes up an Action to allow for the necessary time to interact with the materials used in the casting.

If a spell requires more than one of the above, then the spell is not cast until all requirements have been met. In the case of a spell with V,S,M you would need to expend an Action and 2 Bonus Actions to complete the casting of the spell. A spell that only has a V or S is castable only as a bonus action.

Spells requiring 2 Bonus Actions or more will be cast over two turns. These turns do not have to be successive but cannot be farther apart than 10 minutes x the caster's spellcasting stat modifier. Casting this way utilizes the players Concentration.



Now they'd just have to go back and reassess the V,S,M of all the spells so that it fit their power level. That and deciding if Sorcerors with Subtle still use the Bonus Action or not (testing for balance... because in most Sorcerors I make I take Subtle as an auto choice. I would personally keep it because Sorcerors will now suffer for having to use a Bonus Action to convert spells to Sorcery Points, so they become Bonus Action intensive).

Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

[Man_Over_Game]

Because it always seems to revolve around destroying or taking away things my group and myself enjoys. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind at all what people do in their home games, I just think a lot of these discussions in the game design room would lead to a less fun game for me.

To the person who followed after Man Over Game, the opinion that this kind of thing would be harmful to the fun of myself and my group if implemented universally in the rule book is an opinion contributed, not a snide comment.

Thanks for clarifying. That makes a lot of sense. Would you say there isn't a disparity between the two sides of contention, or that the disparity doesn't matter?

For the record, though, I thought it was a bit snide. It came off as "Man, these ideas are stupid".

However, your last comment added the words "for my table".

[Misterwhisper]

Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

So much potential there that was done completely wrong.

[Man_Over_Game]

So much potential there that was done completely wrong.

How so? A lesson learned through Pathfinder could be a lesson learned here.

[Misterwhisper]

How so? A lesson learned through Pathfinder could be a lesson learned here.

I meant how they went from 1e to 2e in pathfinder.

After reading the PHB for 2E, my group just chunked it’s and said never mind.

[GorogIrongut]

Pathfinder 2nd Edition.
Interesting. While I've done most editions of Dnd, I never branched out into Pathfinder. So I had no idea that my idea was already a thing.

[Sigreid]

Thanks for clarifying. That makes a lot of sense. Would you say there isn't a disparity between the two sides of contention, or that the disparity doesn't matter?

For the record, though, I thought it was a bit snide. It came off as "Man, these ideas are stupid".

However, your last comment added the words "for my table".

I think the two sides, martial and caster fulfill different wish fantasies. One being the eventual master of his reality and the other being the common man rising above to conquer. At least at my table, I've not seen one over shadow the other, I've seen them tackle different things. When I play a wizard, even at high level, I need the guy in the party who likes to play the fighter. If I tried to replace him with magic I'd find myself depleted and vulnerable. The guy playing the fighter needs my magic. Overcoming some challenges without magic will leave him depleted and vulnerable.

I hope that makes some sense.

Edit: This is not to say that I would object to Champion fighter, for example, having access to a short rest legendary resistance around level 10 or so. The man overcoming the magic through will and skill.

[Captain Panda]

These discussions always just make me glad the people on them aren't the ones in charge of the game.

Totally agree. These discussions show why Crawford and Mearls make the big bucks; not every Joe DM actually understands game balance.

[Zuras]

This is not the first time I've done an analysis on the contribution between casters and noncasters, but the only arguments I ever hear is "that isn't what happens in real games".

So show me what *does* happen. What should I be accounting for that I'm missing?

What happens in the Tier 3 & 4 games you play or DM yourself?

In my experience, Disintegrate is a terrible spell compared to almost anything else you can do with a 6th level slot. Pure damage from a caster is rarely going to accomplish much. The martials are always going to cut through a significant enemies HP much more effectively. Casters normally focus on killing mooks with AoE spells or CC on the Boss’ lieutenants. A disintegrate on the Boss is just wasted.

I have seen Fighters and Barbarians in particular have problems, but that’s mostly because their saves against charm and mind control effects are terrible relative to Tier 3+ threats. Rogues, Monks and Paladins all have lower chances of getting knocked out of fights that way. Indomitable doesn’t do you much good against a DC 20 Int save if you still have a -1 modifier.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think the two sides, martial and caster fulfill different wish fantasies. One being the eventual master of his reality and the other being the common man rising above to conquer. At least at my table, I've not seen one over shadow the other, I've seen them tackle different things. When I play a wizard, even at high level, I need the guy in the party who likes to play the fighter. If I tried to replace him with magic I'd find myself depleted and vulnerable. The guy playing the fighter needs my magic. Overcoming some challenges without magic will leave him depleted and vulnerable.

I hope that makes some sense.

It does, but I don't know if you'd actually be that vulnerable or depleted.

Fighters only have about 60% more HP than Wizards. Taking armor into account, Fighters live for roughly twice as long. Which sounds like a big deal, but that's saying that a Fighter that'd die on turn 6 is the same thing as a Wizard that'd die on turn 3. And in most instances, it takes a lot longer than that for a Fighter to provide more in combat than 3 rounds (that is, replacing the Fighter with a Wizard would just result in the fight being finished sooner).

Put another way, since damage only matters when you hit 0, the Fighter's HP only matters when he has received as much damage as would have killed a caster. Which is about half HP. If a Fighter's HP doesn't get below half, it's almost guaranteed that the same scenario would have been easier as a caster.

Even Cantrips only do about 25% less than ranged weapon attacks. Except casters do a lot more than cast Cantrips. Casting a Cantrip is literally the least amount of contribution they can do. But for a martial, that's the standard.




For another perspective, if I was a Warlock and just invested into Eldritch Blast (Agonizing Blast), I'd deal almost exactly the same amount of damage as a ranged Fighter, but with a few extra features on my basic attacks (slow a target, push them back, pull them forward, etc).

Now compare the other features, unrelated to attacks, that the Fighter got vs. the Warlock.

Action Surge vs. Short Rest Max Slot casting (Hex contributes +3.5 damage per attack, Action Surge contributes ~10 damage per attack but once per fight, Hex = Action Surge after 3 rounds)

Invocations + Patron vs. Martial subclass (such as the consistency of the EB invocations with Hexblade's Curse vs. Battlemaster Superiority Dice that have similar effects, Auto-success vs. requiring a save)

Now consider that the EB build is one of the most narrow-minded and limited builds the Warlock can create, when options like At-Will Disguise Self and Silent Image are available, while Battle Master is considered one of the most robust and versatile martials.

Lastly, consider the spot of the Warlock compared to the other casters. As far as public opinion goes, it's the bottom of the totem pole due to it's lack of consistency and versatility.

Or, to put simply:


Battlemaster ≥ Other ranged Martials
Ranged Warlock ≥ Ranged Battlemaster (probably the stronger of the two Battlemaster builds)
Non-Warlocks > Warlocks (All casters)
Ranged Casters > Ranged Martials


In overall niche, Martials have a specialty for single-target damage, while casters have a niche towards AoE damage and status effects.

Using a Samurai for a damage comparison wouldn't be an accurate assessment, because that'd be like comparing a Martial to the Evocation Wizard to track AoE damage.

However, the Battlemaster and the Warlock fit a very similar niche: Single Target Damage AND common combat conditions that are applied onto an attack.
Many of the Battlemaster Maneuvers are duplicated using spells and invocation effects. Public opinion of the Battlemaster is that it's popular, which implies that it's not a weak outlier of the capabilities of the martial concept, but at least a median. The Samurai is good at doing only one thing, but that doesn't accurately describe a mage, not even a specialized Warlock for that matter.

Comparing melee combat is a bit more complicated, since it's hard to determine how much that doubled survivability that Martials have makes an impact, when considering things like healing or buff spells. But I think that is the same situation with things like Hypnotic Pattern, Sleep, Force Wall, and any other powerful defensive spell, so I think it's fair to not compare either and just use what's comparable.

[Sigreid]

It does, but I don't know if you'd actually be that vulnerable or depleted.

Fighters only have about 60% more HP than Wizards. Taking armor into account, Fighters live for roughly twice as long. Which sounds like a big deal, but that's saying that a Fighter that'd die on turn 6 is the same thing as a Wizard that'd die on turn 3. And in most instances, it takes a lot longer than that for a Fighter to provide more in combat than 3 rounds (that is, replacing the Fighter with a Wizard would just result in the fight being finished sooner).

Put another way, since damage only matters when you hit 0, the Fighter's HP only matters when he has received as much damage as would have killed a caster. Which is about half HP. If a Fighter's HP doesn't get below half, it's almost guaranteed that the same scenario would have been easier as a caster.

Even Cantrips only do about 25% less than ranged weapon attacks. Except casters do a lot more than cast Cantrips. Casting a Cantrip is literally the least amount of contribution they can do. But for a martial, that's the standard.




For another perspective, if I was a Warlock and just invested into Eldritch Blast (Agonizing Blast), I'd deal almost exactly the same amount of damage as a ranged Fighter, but with a few extra features on my basic attacks (slow a target, push them back, pull them forward, etc).

Now compare the other features, unrelated to attacks, that the Fighter got vs. the Warlock.

Action Surge vs. Short Rest Max Slot casting (Hex contributes +3.5 damage per attack, Action Surge contributes ~10 damage per attack but once per fight, Hex = Action Surge after 3 rounds)

Invocations + Patron vs. Martial subclass (such as the consistency of the EB invocations with Hexblade's Curse vs. Battlemaster Superiority Dice that have similar effects, Auto-success vs. requiring a save)

Now consider that the EB build is one of the most narrow-minded and limited builds the Warlock can create, when options like At-Will Disguise Self and Silent Image are available, while Battle Master is considered one of the most robust and versatile martials.

Lastly, consider the spot of the Warlock compared to the other casters. As far as public opinion goes, it's the bottom of the totem pole due to it's lack of consistency and versatility.

Or, to put simply:


Battlemaster ≥ Other ranged Martials
Ranged Warlock ≥ Ranged Battlemaster (probably the stronger of the two Battlemaster builds)
Non-Warlocks > Warlocks (All casters)
Ranged Casters > Ranged Martials


In overall niche, Martials have a specialty for single-target damage, while casters have a niche towards AoE damage and status effects.

Using a Samurai for a damage comparison wouldn't be an accurate assessment, because that'd be like comparing a Martial to the Evocation Wizard to track AoE damage.

However, the Battlemaster and the Warlock fit a very similar niche: Single Target Damage AND common combat conditions that are applied onto an attack.
Many of the Battlemaster Maneuvers are duplicated using spells and invocation effects. Public opinion of the Battlemaster is that it's popular, which implies that it's not a weak outlier of the capabilities of the martial concept, but at least a median. The Samurai is good at doing only one thing, but that doesn't accurately describe a mage, not even a specialized Warlock for that matter.

Comparing melee combat is a bit more complicated, since it's hard to determine how much that doubled survivability that Martials have makes an impact, when considering things like healing or buff spells. But I think that is the same situation with things like Hypnotic Pattern, Sleep, Force Wall, and any other powerful defensive spell, so I think it's fair to not compare either and just use what's comparable.

I think our key difference, which you did bring up earlier, is I don't need the classes to be equal, I need them to be different. I need them to fulfill different fantasies when people play them.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think our key difference, which you did bring up earlier, is I don't need the classes to be equal, I need them to be different. I need them to fulfill different fantasies when people play them.

I agree, but I need that as: "Everyone fails from their weaknesses, but you can cover for someone else's".

Followed by "Casters don't have nearly enough weaknesses, and Martials don't have nearly enough strengths".

It doesn't have to be numbers. Martials don't need to deal more damage, and casters less. But that seems to be one of the easiest solutions and comparisons, which is why it comes up often.

[Yakk]

Again, another comparison of a ranged character to a warlock that takes neither XBE or SS under consideration.

If you said "in a featless game" you'd have a point. But you don't.

A SS+XBE fighter will blow a EB warlock's DPR out of the water.

Then the archer gets a quiver of +X arrows and a +X crossbow. Both add to accuracy and to damage, while the warlock equivalent doesn't add to damage.

A level 20 BM fighter with a +3 hand xbow and +3 quiver can attack at +14 to hit for 1d6+23 (26.5) per hit 4x per action, plus once on a bonus action.

The warlock with a +3 rod and hex is attacking at +14 to hit for 1d10+5+1d6 (14) damage 4x per action.

That is 90% more damage for the fighter, who also gets 2 action surges and a bonus action attack.

Next we can look at party support. Get an ally to cast holy weapon on the fighter and it deals another 2d8 (9) damage per hit, and at 4 high accuracy attacks she is the best target you are going to find.

Of course, if you want to get crazy, equip a ring of spell storing, cast swift quiver into it.

None of these buff options are available to the warlock.

+3 heavy crossbow, +3 quiver, ring of spell storing, bracers of archery. Round 1: action surge, swift quiver, ally casts holy weapon on the crossbow.

284 damage at +14 to hit

Turn 2, action surge and use quiver bonus action. 355 damage at +14 to hit.

Turn 3, back to baseline. Only 213 damage at +14 to hit.

This is insane amounts of buffing. But even without this, the fighter is putting out way more damage than the warlock was.

And none of this is using BM dice yet.

[Man_Over_Game]

That's a pretty extreme comparison at level 20, though. Most games I've played sit around levels 3-8, and WotC seems to agree that that's the average for most people, too. Magical ammunition, in particular, is unlikely to be readily available by that level.

Additionally, you're including the extra damage from Sharpshooter, but you don't mention the penalty that comes with it.

Lastly, there are very few feats that compare to GWM and SS. In order for a martial to get anywhere near that level of damage potential, they would need these feats. But that doesn't aptly describe a Fighter. That can be just as big of a boon on a Ranger, or hell, a Monk.

What I'm trying to say is that what you've posted doesn't show that Fighters are overpowered, but that Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are.

Unless you're willing to back the idea that those need to be chosen for a martial to stay relevant, and your choice of ASI/Feat is mostly an illusion of choice, I don't think it's a fair assessment to base the power of a class based around a single feat when there are about ~50 to choose from.

[MrStabby]

I think our key difference, which you did bring up earlier, is I don't need the classes to be equal, I need them to be different. I need them to fulfill different fantasies when people play them.

Whilst I kind of agree with this there are some reservations:

1) Balance can't be too bad. i.e not being equal is fine, being as out of whack as they are at the moment, at least for high level play is an issue for me.

2) Each class must have a point: no class should be better in all major combat functions than any other class. No class should be better in all three pillars of the game than any other class.

[Ryuu Hayato]

What I'm trying to say is that what you've posted doesn't show that Fighters are overpowered, but that Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are.

Unless you're willing to back the idea that those need to be chosen for a martial to stay relevant, and your choice of ASI/Feat is mostly an illusion of choice, I don't think it's a fair assessment to base the power of a class based around a single feat when there are about ~50 to choose from.

And that's the main problem with feats in 5th edition.

Some people claim about feats be cool, because they add some source of "customization". But, in the end, is all about optimization. Or you play GWM/SS fighter, or you are doing wrong. That's sucks too much.

That's why I and others say that the fighter needs some rework. They should not rely too much to feats to be relevant. Feats like Sentinel (don't let people pass to you), Mage Slayer (don't let a spell be cast in front of you), Shield Master (put your shield in from of you) should be fighter's core abilities.

But then, even in a featless and multiclassless game, fighter still good. However, they only need some half proficiency, or even proficiency, in their saves. If you don't want to be too conservative, let they have legendary resistance.

Lastly, I agree with you. Feats are illusion of choice.

[Sigreid]

Whilst I kind of agree with this there are some reservations:

1) Balance can't be too bad. i.e not being equal is fine, being as out of whack as they are at the moment, at least for high level play is an issue for me.

2) Each class must have a point: no class should be better in all major combat functions than any other class. No class should be better in all three pillars of the game than any other class.


So far we've had games go up to level 14 and haven't had this problem. It may be because of how we play. When I was doing a 14th level wizard, it is 100% true that I could shut down a major enemy for a little while, but unless it was an enemy I could banish I actually taking it out would take all of my significant resources and leave me more or less useless for the rest of the day. Since we don't generally play in a way that that would be the only significant challenge between long rests, that's a bad idea. A more efficient use of my resources was nearly always arranging it so the Monk, cleric and arcane archer could focus on the toughest opponents without having to worry about most of the lesser support.

[TheUser]

This thread seems like a classic example of textbook analysis; casters look absolutely broken on paper until you start going up against the plethora of magic resistant enemies and bosses with high saves on top of condition immunities, true sight, damage resistance/immunity (omg elemental damage what happened?), legendary resistance and sometimes even spell immunity below a certain spell level.

Then the level 15 elven samurai busts into the 1st round of the encounter dropping down 7 triple-advantage sharpshooter longbow attacks with their +2 longbow dealing 7d8+119 damage and a continual follow up of 4d8+68 which the boss can do very little about and then wonder who's reliant on who. (Average roll with triple advantage is 15 with standard deviation of 3 and the fighter is still attacking at +9 with shaprshooter deduction).

Spell casters can do lots of great battlefield control and clear up mooks but martials are what kill bosses and big bads. In tier 4 it gets a bit weird (because wish, true polymorph and shapechange are silly) but who plays tier 4 anyway? Also wtf can a caster do about anti-magic field? There are venues that can be explored but the notion that your 17th level character is almost completely countered by a single spell is ridiculous.

[MrStabby]

This thread seems like a classic example of textbook analysis; casters look absolutely broken on paper until you start going up against the plethora of magic resistant enemies and bosses with high saves on top of condition immunities, true sight, damage resistance/immunity (omg elemental damage what happened?), legendary resistance and sometimes even spell immunity below a certain spell level.

Then the level 15 elven samurai busts into the 1st round of the encounter dropping down 7 triple-advantage sharpshooter longbow attacks with their +2 longbow dealing 7d8+119 damage and a continual follow up of 4d8+68 which the boss can do very little about and then wonder who's reliant on who. (Average roll with triple advantage is 15 with standard deviation of 3 and the fighter is still attacking at +9 with shaprshooter deduction).

Spell casters can do lots of great battlefield control and clear up mooks but martials are what kill bosses and big bads. In tier 4 it gets a bit weird (because wish, true polymorph and shapechange are silly) but who plays tier 4 anyway? Also wtf can a caster do about anti-magic field? There are venues that can be explored but the notion that your 17th level character is almost completely countered by a single spell is ridiculous.

I am not quite sure where you are going with this? Are you saying that everyone claiming to have actually experienced this is making it up? That we never actually played these games and our experiences didn't actually happen? Or maybe you are suggesting that we did play but remembered things wrong? Or maybe all of us just happened to get the rules wrong and in a case of mass coordinated amnesia forgot about resistances and immunities?

And yeah, it can suck as a caster if an enemy is immune to all your spells, resistant to all your damage. So you know... you can take a second spell that does damage. Casters can know more than one! It can even be of a different damage type to get round this! Imagine! Or you can take spells like wall of force that does stuff even against magic resistant enemies. Or even use spells like animate dead and planar binding and just use attack rolls.

And as to who plays tier 4 - well apparently you do, if you have experience of level 15 samurais. But you do have a point. Relatively few people play Tier 4. Why? What could it possibly be about tier 4 that makes it less appealing to people? What changes at this level to stop it being fun? That makes people not want to play it? Wouldn't it be a great topic to talk about and to try and fix?

[Zuras]

I am not quite sure where you are going with this? Are you saying that everyone claiming to have actually experienced this is making it up? That we never actually played these games and our experiences didn't actually happen? Or maybe you are suggesting that we did play but remembered things wrong? Or maybe all of us just happened to get the rules wrong and in a case of mass coordinated amnesia forgot about resistances and immunities?

And yeah, it can suck as a caster if an enemy is immune to all your spells, resistant to all your damage. So you know... you can take a second spell that does damage. Casters can know more than one! It can even be of a different damage type to get round this! Imagine! Or you can take spells like wall of force that does stuff even against magic resistant enemies. Or even use spells like animate dead and planar binding and just use attack rolls.


Not going to speak for anyone else, but using numerical analysis to compare damage dealt per round and implying those differences relate to actual play indicates lack of experience with actual high level play.

Additionally, framing the issue as a “caster supremacy” issue seems disingenuous. I haven’t seen Clerics, Druids, Warlocks or Bards run completely rampant over a Tier 3 session. Martials actually dominate combat to a great extent, unless you need an AoE to clear out the riff-raff. Simulacrum, Wall of Force and Forcecage are absolutely bonkers, but other than that, combat effectiveness is pretty even.

Using Fighter as your base line of comparison also artificially magnifies the issue, because Fighters don’t get any ridiculous cinematic powers with odd applications, ever. High level monks, for example, end up doing all sorts of odd things by virtue of running on walls. A swashbuckler with expertise in Persuasion has a decent chance to fast talk a god for a minute using Panache. High level fighters just get more options and incremental improvements on the same powers they already had.

I’ll agree that higher level fighter abilities are boring and inflexible in higher level play, especially when compared to a Wizard with an expansive spellbook. In particular, they don't get to contribute to the exploration pillar much. Based on several hundred hours of high level play, though, I can say any complaints about raw damage output are way off the mark.

[Man_Over_Game]

This thread seems like a classic example of textbook analysis; casters look absolutely broken on paper until you start going up against the plethora of magic resistant enemies and bosses with high saves on top of condition immunities, true sight, damage resistance/immunity (omg elemental damage what happened?), legendary resistance and sometimes even spell immunity below a certain spell level.

Then the level 15 elven samurai busts into the 1st round of the encounter dropping down 7 triple-advantage sharpshooter longbow attacks with their +2 longbow dealing 7d8+119 damage and a continual follow up of 4d8+68 which the boss can do very little about and then wonder who's reliant on who. (Average roll with triple advantage is 15 with standard deviation of 3 and the fighter is still attacking at +9 with shaprshooter deduction).

Spell casters can do lots of great battlefield control and clear up mooks but martials are what kill bosses and big bads. In tier 4 it gets a bit weird (because wish, true polymorph and shapechange are silly) but who plays tier 4 anyway? Also wtf can a caster do about anti-magic field? There are venues that can be explored but the notion that your 17th level character is almost completely countered by a single spell is ridiculous.


But are any of those good things?
I think having rigid denial effects actively make the game worse, especially since spells are already less consistent with weapon attacks (that is, 2 spells are more expensive and slower to act than 2 attacks) and spells have a higher chance of failure (average chance to hit is about 70%, but chance to fail a save is closer to 55%).

Additionally, many spell effects appear the same upon failure, whether that failure is caused by a good save stat, a good roll, or a good feature. It doesn't really provide any feedback.

Lastly, a missed attack is a missed attack, but a missed spell is a spent resource. A player spent a resource to do something, and it failed without a chance for success.

I've always held the philosophy that a player that can't blame themselves should blame the DM. So who's fault was it that the spell failed regardless of the roll?

If you want your players to adapt, they need feedback. It's hard to provide that feedback when it's 100% successful or 0% successful. All of the things you mentioned are things that force the chance of success on those spells to be 0%. They make the caster unable to contribute.

Am I wrong, or does it seem odd that we have to put casters in time-out for martials to stand out?

[Pex]

And as to who plays tier 4 - well apparently you do, if you have experience of level 15 samurais. But you do have a point. Relatively few people play Tier 4. Why? What could it possibly be about tier 4 that makes it less appealing to people? What changes at this level to stop it being fun? That makes people not want to play it? Wouldn't it be a great topic to talk about and to try and fix?

Maybe it's because players like to start at level 1, and it takes a long real world time to get to such a level. By the time they are within that level real life has many chances to make the game end. As it happens, though, I'm in two high level games. One was started at level 6. I'm now level 16. I'm the only player left from the first day 6 years ago. One joined the second game. Another joined game 5. Everyone else only joined within the last two years as the bulk have left long ago for personal life reasons. DM was stingy with XP in the beginning. He has gotten better. In the second game we're level 15 having started at level 3 a year and a half ago. We use milestone leveling as plot continues relatively quickly, especially when compared to the other game. Both DMs are planning for the campaign to reach level 20.

Sometimes the spellcaster wins the day. We're happy about it. It was still a party effort. Just today the druid in the second campaign polymorphed a beholder twice until finally getting rid of it for good with Plane Shift. The beholder wasn't the BBEG of the fight but still dangerous of course. Because of the druid the beholder hardly mattered at all.

[Man_Over_Game]

And as to who plays tier 4 - well apparently you do, if you have experience of level 15 samurais. But you do have a point. Relatively few people play Tier 4. Why? What could it possibly be about tier 4 that makes it less appealing to people? What changes at this level to stop it being fun? That makes people not want to play it? Wouldn't it be a great topic to talk about and to try and fix?

The best theory I've heard about it is DM fatigue. Epic magic is pretty world-changing, and it gets more and more difficult for DMs to create encounters, stories and villains that challenge the players and utilize all of their talents evenly.

[TheUser]

And as to who plays tier 4 - well apparently you do, if you have experience of level 15 samurais. But you do have a point. Relatively few people play Tier 4. Why? What could it possibly be about tier 4 that makes it less appealing to people? What changes at this level to stop it being fun? That makes people not want to play it? Wouldn't it be a great topic to talk about and to try and fix?

I mean I -have- played tier 4 but level 15 samurais aren't tier 4....you know that right?

[Misterwhisper]

The best theory I've heard about it is DM fatigue. Epic magic is pretty world-changing, and it gets more and more difficult for DMs to create encounters, stories and villains that challenge the players and utilize all of their talents evenly.

It is not possible to use everyone evenly because the classes are not made to be balanced.

People with little in the way of resources, like non-casters get to last much longer at being at top efficiency, but people with a tight resource to manage, like full casters get to be the best at just about everything, as long as they have the spell slots to do it.

The issue is, you can't make people spend resources, especially when everyone knows how all encounters are set up.

There are only 4 kinds of encounters:

Encounters that are solved through RP, which is always fun, but anyone can do it.
Encounters that are solved through the use of skills, also cool, everyone gets to shine.
Encounters that are solved through combat. This begins the problem.
A non-caster solves every problem the same way, target AC, do HP damage, kill it before it kills you. You may have some bells and whistles on how you do it, but it is all the same really.
Casters can either be conservative and pound away with cantrips that do somewhat OK damage and may have a nice rider if the enemy does not look that dangerous, they can through out one of the better spells and have a decent chance of ending the encounter mostly right there, or make it a forgone conclusion.
If it is the first encounter of the day, casters know this is not the big fight so they just sit back and plink away.

The biggest issue is the 4th type of encounter an encounter that was supposed to be one of the first 3, but the caster just bypasses it all with spells.
Martial can't do that.

Casters are also, ALWAYS in charge of when a rest is taken.

I can not even count the number of times this has happened:

Team: Ok, we got through that, lets see what is next.
Caster: Nope, I am taking a long rest.
Team: The rest of us are fine, just don't blow all your spells next time.
Caster: Well I am taking a rest anyway.
DM: This is not a safe area to rest, like at all.
Caster: So, we will take our chances, or you can TPK the group, how bad do you want your game to die?

That or everyone just runs a 15min adventure day anyway, so every fight starts at full resources and casters just smash things and move on.

[Luccan]

It is not possible to use everyone evenly because the classes are not made to be balanced.

People with little in the way of resources, like non-casters get to last much longer at being at top efficiency, but people with a tight resource to manage, like full casters get to be the best at just about everything, as long as they have the spell slots to do it.

The issue is, you can't make people spend resources, especially when everyone knows how all encounters are set up.

There are only 4 kinds of encounters:

Encounters that are solved through RP, which is always fun, but anyone can do it.
Encounters that are solved through the use of skills, also cool, everyone gets to shine.
Encounters that are solved through combat. This begins the problem.
A non-caster solves every problem the same way, target AC, do HP damage, kill it before it kills you. You may have some bells and whistles on how you do it, but it is all the same really.
Casters can either be conservative and pound away with cantrips that do somewhat OK damage and may have a nice rider if the enemy does not look that dangerous, they can through out one of the better spells and have a decent chance of ending the encounter mostly right there, or make it a forgone conclusion.
If it is the first encounter of the day, casters know this is not the big fight so they just sit back and plink away.

The biggest issue is the 4th type of encounter an encounter that was supposed to be one of the first 3, but the caster just bypasses it all with spells.
Martial can't do that.

Casters are also, ALWAYS in charge of when a rest is taken.

I can not even count the number of times this has happened:

Team: Ok, we got through that, lets see what is next.
Caster: Nope, I am taking a long rest.
Team: The rest of us are fine, just don't blow all your spells next time.
Caster: Well I am taking a rest anyway.
DM: This is not a safe area to rest, like at all.
Caster: So, we will take our chances, or you can TPK the group, how bad do you want your game to die?

That or everyone just runs a 15min adventure day anyway, so every fight starts at full resources and casters just smash things and move on.

I also can't count the number of times that happens, because why would you willingly play with someone who acts like that?

[Misterwhisper]

I also can't count the number of times that happens, because why would you willingly play with someone who acts like that?

It is just the way it is, people are far too used to Carebear DMing as I call it.

[TheUser]

And here I thought you could only long rest once in a 24 hour period....

[Trask]

I can not even count the number of times this has happened:
Team: Ok, we got through that, lets see what is next.
Caster: Nope, I am taking a long rest.
Team: The rest of us are fine, just don't blow all your spells next time.
Caster: Well I am taking a rest anyway.
DM: This is not a safe area to rest, like at all.
Caster: So, we will take our chances, or you can TPK the group, how bad do you want your game to die?

This happened to me a lot as well, until I started making actual rules that you cant long rest just anywhere you want, you have to be in a sanctuary place. The concept of the hard limit did wonders, and my players stopped trying to make camp every 5 minutes in dank dungeon rooms and desert dunes. Highly recommended method

[Misterwhisper]

This happened to me a lot as well, until I started making actual rules that you cant long rest just anywhere you want, you have to be in a sanctuary place. The concept of the hard limit did wonders, and my players stopped trying to make camp every 5 minutes in dank dungeon rooms and desert dunes. Highly recommended method

I was not running those games, I am much more brutally logical.
If you try to hole up in a dungeon for 8 hours where you have already killed multiple people or monsters, you will get noticed.

[AdAstra]

If you did want to have some kind of "charge-up" mechanic for high level spells, a far more sensible solution would be to require the caster to declare the high-level spell a certain number of turns in advance (like 1 or 2). They don't have to cast that spell, but if they want to cast a different high level spell they have to declare a different one and wait. Requires a little forethought as to which spells will be most useful next turn or the turn after that, reduces the ability to wipe an encounter before it starts, and gives enemies/the DM some time to actually react. At the same time, it doesn't require multiple turns of potentially wasted actions or messing with concentration.

To deal with excessive long rests/not enough resource strain for casters without messing with rest structures, some campaigns might benefit from having higher-level spell slots recharge on a different timer than normal ones. So perhaps if one were to cast a spell of 6th level or higher, it takes spell level-4 long rests or something to regain that spell slot. Upcasting using a 6th level+ slot might get around this restriction, so an 8th level spirit guardians will recharge as normal, but casting Earthquake would take 4 long rests to replenish the spell slot.

[Cikomyr2]

If you did want to have some kind of "charge-up" mechanic for high level spells, a far more sensible solution would be to require the caster to declare the high-level spell a certain number of turns in advance (like 1 or 2). They don't have to cast that spell, but if they want to cast a different high level spell they have to declare a different one and wait. Requires a little forethought as to which spells will be most useful next turn or the turn after that, reduces the ability to wipe an encounter before it starts, and gives enemies/the DM some time to actually react. At the same time, it doesn't require multiple turns of potentially wasted actions or messing with concentration.

To deal with excessive long rests/not enough resource strain for casters without messing with rest structures, some campaigns might benefit from having higher-level spell slots recharge on a different timer than normal ones. So perhaps if one were to cast a spell of 6th level or higher, it takes spell level-4 long rests or something to regain that spell slot. Upcasting using a 6th level+ slot might get around this restriction, so an 8th level spirit guardians will recharge as normal, but casting Earthquake would take 4 long rests to replenish the spell slot.

That's it. That's where I took this idea. It's like the delay of ordering large ships around in Armada.

I like that mechanic.

[Man_Over_Game]

If you did want to have some kind of "charge-up" mechanic for high level spells, a far more sensible solution would be to require the caster to declare the high-level spell a certain number of turns in advance (like 1 or 2). They don't have to cast that spell, but if they want to cast a different high level spell they have to declare a different one and wait. Requires a little forethought as to which spells will be most useful next turn or the turn after that, reduces the ability to wipe an encounter before it starts, and gives enemies/the DM some time to actually react. At the same time, it doesn't require multiple turns of potentially wasted actions or messing with concentration.

To deal with excessive long rests/not enough resource strain for casters without messing with rest structures, some campaigns might benefit from having higher-level spell slots recharge on a different timer than normal ones. So perhaps if one were to cast a spell of 6th level or higher, it takes spell level-4 long rests or something to regain that spell slot. Upcasting using a 6th level+ slot might get around this restriction, so an 8th level spirit guardians will recharge as normal, but casting Earthquake would take 4 long rests to replenish the spell slot.

I kinda hobbled something like that on the "What do you nerf" thread, based on OP's original idea, although the goal was to make it a little simpler and easier to remember.

Channeling:
When you cast a spell who's level is equal or greater than your Proficiency, and has a casting time of an Action or a Bonus Action, it is first "Channeled" (Readied) until just before the start of your next turn when it is then cast.

If there are no valid targets at the time of casting, you can choose to cast a different spell, who's spell level is less than your Proficiency, using your channeled spell slot.

If you need to cast a spell with a casting time of Reaction while Concentrating on a Channeled spell, you can use the spell slot of the Channeled spell for the new spell instead of losing it (So if you're channeling on a level 3 spell, need to cast Shield, then you can use that level 3 slot for Shield).

[JNAProductions]

I kinda hobbled something like that on the "What do you nerf" thread, based on OP's original idea, although the goal was to make it a little simpler and easier to remember.

Channeling:
When you cast a spell who's level is equal or greater than your Proficiency, and has a casting time of an Action or a Bonus Action, it is first "Channeled" (Readied) until just before the start of your next turn when it is then cast.

If there are no valid targets at the time of casting, you can choose to cast a different spell, who's spell level is less than your Proficiency, using your channeled spell slot.

If you need to cast a spell with a casting time of Reaction while Concentrating on a Channeled spell, you can use the spell slot of the Channeled spell for the new spell instead of losing it (So if you're channeling on a level 3 spell, need to cast Shield, then you can use that level 3 slot for Shield).

Interesting. Doesn't actually affect PCs till level 7 (+3 Prof, 4th level slots) and I don't believe ever hits half-casters or third-casters. While I'm not sure it's NEEDED, it's definitely a solid idea!

[Man_Over_Game]

Interesting. Doesn't actually affect PCs till level 7 (+3 Prof, 4th level slots) and I don't believe ever hits half-casters or third-casters. While I'm not sure it's NEEDED, it's definitely a solid idea!

It's "Equal or greater than your proficiency". So it'd start being relevant at level 3 for level 2 spells, get bumped at 5, and so on.

[JNAProductions]

It's "Equal or greater than your proficiency". So it'd start being relevant at level 3 for level 2 spells, get bumped at 5, and so on.

Ah-that's me reading it too fast and not paying enough attention.

Still doesn't hit half-casters, though!

[Man_Over_Game]

Ah-that's me reading it too fast and not paying enough attention.

Still doesn't hit half-casters, though!

Yup! It wasn't intentional, but that worked out to be a good benefit.

I wanted to make a solution that required mages to rely on martials' protection to pull off game-changing effects so that both parties feel responsible for the success. It also makes magic a lot more interactive between opposing sides, so that martials can interrupt casters without needing to invest in Counterspell and adding value to Mage Slayer. I also wanted to push some of the focus away from so many powerhouse Concentration spells, but I also didn't want to screw around with the action economy of casting.

I'm gonna test it out with my two new groups, maybe put them up against a caster boss or something.