Trying to Balance Tier 3-4 Martials vs Casters

[dmhelp]

I was wondering how people thought the following two house rules would affect martial vs caster play balance at Tiers 3-4 of play.

1. At level 13 & 16 single classed martials & Rangers pick powers (with DM approval) from a second subclass (from PHB/XGE, also can be from another class if thematically appropriate), with DM approval the order of subclass power progression may be altered to intermix the two subclasses

This benefit is lost if you later choose to multiclass. This is to add more utility to single classed martials and to make them more competitive with casters, Paladins, sorcadins, and highly optimized multiclassed characters. The level 13 power would be tier 1-3 (a tier 3 power means the 3rd power granted by a subclass, e.g. Dragon Wings is a 3rd tier Sorcerer subclass power) and the level 16 power would be tier 2-4 (a higher tier than the first power).

Any thematically and mechanically appropriate martial or Ranger subclass could be chosen (in most cases appropriate powers come from the main class, Fighter, or Ranger; e.g. only a Barbarian could choose rage based powers, only a Monk could choose ki powers, and only a Rogue could choose powers depending on Sneak Attack), but no one can choose Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster (as a second subclass). Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters (as a primary subclass) may choose arcane subclasses (such as Fiend from Warlock). Rangers may use divine subclasses (such as Circle of the Land from Druid).

E.g. for an Arcane Trickster one of the many valid options would be: Dragon Ancestor/Draconic Resilience @ 13 followed by Dragon Wings @ 16.

E.g. a Four Elements Monk could choose Battle Master and opt for a modified power progression as follows: @3 Combat Superiority/Student of War, @ 7 Disciple of the Elements/Elemental Disciplines, @ 11 Extra Elemental Discipline, @ 13 Extra Elemental Discipline, @ 16 Additional Maneuvers (5 total)/Additional Superiority Die (5 total)/Relentless, & @ 17 Extra Elemental Discipline.

2. May only animate/create/summon/control one "summoned creature" at a time (not counting familiars or class features)

This is to speed up combat and help balance martial vs caster at higher level. A single planar binding counts as your one creature. Simulacrum counts as your one creature and it cannot control summoned creatures. Some examples of this in play: A level 14 or higher Necromancy Wizard could control one creature, plus one additional skeleton/zombie, plus a commanded undead (three total creatures). A level 6 or higher Spores Druid could control one zombie from their class feature plus one more creature. A level 14 or higher Shepherd Druid that went unconscious could control 4 animals from their class feature plus one more creature.

I'm most concerned about overall class balance. Other house rules include higher starting abilities with custom origins, a free weak feat, casting single target damage spells as cantrips, and variant damage type draconic sorcerer spells. So if someone is discouraged from playing a certain subclass (Shepherd Druid for example) they will know the rules up front and should be able to find something else fun to play.

*I edited this post to move the spoiler out because I don’t think people were reading the discussion of the two rules.

[LudicSavant]

Start with nerfing some specific "game changer" spells, beginning with Simulacrum.

It's seriously hard for things without Simulacrum to compete with the optimization potential of things with Simulacrum from level 13 onwards, even with the less powerful RAI version of Simulacrum and a tight wallet. Perhaps look to its limitations in older editions for some guidance there.

Close the loophole for "slot hedging" (e.g. "I cast the spell at night, then rest and get the slot back, but still have the slot's effect"). Examples include Goodberry and Animate Dead.

Rework minionmancy.

Give martials more utility and horizontal scaling at high levels (as opposed to vertical scaling).

Make Chronurgists and Spell Storing Items follow the same limitations as the Artificer's Spell Storing ability (only works on things with a casting time of 1 action).

Establish some guidelines / limits on just how far Illusory Reality can go.

Bring Twilight Sanctuary more into line with other strong Channel Divinities.

Make it so that 1 level Hexblade dips are a little less effective. Some of their features can be safely removed without even affecting single-class Hexblades at all (example: single-class Hexblades don't want to spend a 5th level Pact Magic slot on Shield. Nor do they care about Hexblade's Curse scaling with Proficiency). Hexblade's Curse scaling is part of what allows optimized direct blasters to outdamage martials, and a regenerating Shield slot goes a long way to making them tankier too.

...For starters.

[Tanarii]

If your concern is combat spells, change level 6+ single-action spells to start casting at initiative, and go off at init-10. And getting hit means automatic loss of spell, no concentration check.

If it's out of combat, I'd go with some or all of:
- increase the number of resource-required encounters per long rest, to 1.5 to 2 times as many.
- figure out which spells you consider disruptive to play and remove them. Curate the spell list.
- add some wushu combat maneuvers tied to Str (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks. (Or no ability score, the 6 martials only.)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Make it so resources spent but still having an effect in play are only recovered after that effect has ended. One example of this is the Coffee Sorlock. Spending Warlock slots to create sorcery points to create sorcerer slots means those warlock slots (resources) were spent (to make sorcery points) but they still have an effect present in play (the sorcerer slots that were created), so they can't be recovered until those sorcerer spell slots are spent or otherwise gone.

This would also apply to long-duration or permanent spells like animate dead, create undead, and simulacrum. If you cast animate dead/create undead, until those undead it created are all destroyed you can't recover the spell slot you spent to cast it. Same goes for a simulacrum, you don't get that spell slot back until it's destroyed.

[JoeJ]

Start with nerfing some specific "game changer" spells, beginning with Simulacrum.

It's seriously hard for things without Simulacrum to compete with the optimization potential of things with Simulacrum from level 13 onwards, even with the less powerful RAI version of Simulacrum and a tight wallet. Perhaps look to its limitations in older editions for some guidance there.

One obvious nerf (if you want to call it that) is to rule that Simulacrum creates a friendly NPC, not a second body for their PC.

[OldTrees1]

Start with figuring out what Tier 3-4 is about. For example I think the party should be able to face increasingly exotic/hostile/weird environments. In Tier 3 an encounter being miles up in the sky is something I expect a party of all martials to be able to handle. WotC does not expect the same. You might have a 3rd set of expectations.

[Sindeloke]

Low-magic balance: Casters do not automatically get spells of 6th level and above. Like any of them, ever. When they level up they can pick new spells of 1-5, or new cantrips, and they can use their high level slots to upcast their known spells, but any 6th+ spells need to be specifically targeted and quested for, one at a time. You can adjust the balance by playing with class/subclass features that grant spells; letting warlocks keep their mystic arcanum, for example. If casters still feel noticeably more flexible than martials, switching to the so-called Gritty Realism rest schedule or limiting casters to one spell per level per day to emphasize resource management is a further lever to pull.

High-magic balance: as @OldTrees says, consider the environments and challenges 6+ spells are clearly meant to counter, and invent a whole suite of new high-level martial features that allow them access to meet those challenges as well. Monks balancing on clouds in order to "fly", rangers ignoring planar effects by recalibrating their favored terrain, fighters and barbarians being permitted to break force effects or knock down fortifications that would otherwise require passwall with single weapon strikes, etc etc. This is a lot more work-intensive on your part, but players almost always prefer buffs to nerfs, so it's a more friendly way to do it.

[Fable Wright]

1. No Planar Binding.
2. No Simulacrum.
3. No Pixies, no CR 1/4th options from Conjure Animals.

I just finished the last combat session for a level 3-20 game. In the final fight, the Sharpshooter Eldritch Knight (w/ a few dips, for War Cleric bonus action attacks, Hexblade's Curse, Chain Familiar and War Wizard for saves) was dealing the same amount of damage as the rest of the party combined. That's 4 party members, mind you, three full casters and an Artificer. Summons in combat were a categorically bad idea from the high ACs and immunity/ resistance to nonmagical BPS and concentration was regularly interrupted by 20+d6 damage AoE effects. An army of skeletons would have been useless in the final fight.

A Shepherd Druid with Quickling summons from an 8th level slot would have had pretty comparable damage, though summons would go poof every time a high damage effect targeted them. Letting said Druid use Wolves, Velociraptors, or Flying Snakes en masse against a vulnerable target would very dramatically outdamage, though.

Sharpshooter Fighters and Paladins/Sorcadins are kings of damage at this point. Rangers, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians struggle a bit. Rather than enable trap options with weird combos and buffing the martials that do good, though?

Just make -5 to hit/+10 damage not require a feat and be usable with any weapon. Monks are now competitive with damage.

After level 13, all Barbarians gain the benefits of Frenzy without drawbacks.

Rogues get refluffed Greenflame and Booming Blade for free. Call them Dirty Trick and Hamstring.

Finally, move Swift Quiver to a level 4 Ranger spell that doesn't take a spell known.

I think that would solve pretty much all of those classes' problems at higher levels relative to Fighter? I'm open to feedback, though.

[Captain Panda]

Tier 4 isn't really supposed to be balanced.

[Falconcry]

2nd level Fighter “Hey wimpy wizard after you fire off your three magic missiles hide behind me and keep up your firebolt”

15th level Fighter “Hey Doctor Weird we seem to be stuck on the sixth layer of Hell with that Archdevil looking this way. Any chance you can shift us back to Waterdeep?”

Most games only see the former.

Seems to be working as intended?

[Eldariel]

Tier 4 isn't really supposed to be balanced.

What kind of argument is this? Just because it isn't, why shouldn't people fix it? It's actually not very hard (well, it is and isn't but still, there's a lot you can do that isn't done in the core rules to this end).

[Topgoon]

I think a fundamental issue with balancing martials lies in their lack of utility and horizontal scaling when compared to casters (especially with all the power creep we've had in 5e now).

I'd even go so far as to say the current martial class identities and structure is directly detrimental to their versatility and utility (especially by tier 4). What a martial can excel in is too directly tied to their specific class, whereas casters does not generally have that restriction. This makes everything harder to truly be balanced because I assume you'd want to maintain some semblance of the existing class identities.

I.e. (simplified example here) fighters and barbarians get to be good at fighting, a rogue are good at interacting with the world (via skills), and monks excel in mobility, etc., but that's it - outside of those specializations, your scaling is highly limited. The level 20 fighter might struggle with the same difficult terrain obstacle that they struggled with at level 1. Whereas most casters will eventually become competent in all those roles and often even exceed a dedicated martial specialist in particular roles.

Limited resources is the price casters pay for this level of versatility and scale, but the problem at tier 4 is the versatility and power they've gained from this trade-off effectively lets caster dictate this limitation. (e.g. expending spells to create a situation where you can rest safely to regain said spells).


So from a practical standpoint to bring some semblance of balance we're looking at nerfing casters access to their vast array of spells/solutions, or we need to give martials the same access as they level up. I'd much rather do the latter since so much of the fun in D&D comes from the access to these solutions.

If we forget class identity for a second - realistically to keep up by tier 4, all martial classes should all have ways to gaining mobility, more skill improvements, various combat options, and just straight up raw damage - essentially their capabilities to affect and traverse the world need to scale the way casters do. I don't know how to do that without breaking apart the current martial class identities. In my mind, a fixed martial class that is competitive in tier 4 would look more like a gestalt of the existing martial classes than what they are now.

[Waazraath]

Some thoughts, not gonna quote everybody, in semi-random order:

- yes, of course tier 4 is also supposed to be balanced, at least the designers should try;

- I don't think martial classes have any problem with damage dealing in tier 4, if I look at the math (disregarding silly stuff like casters using simulacrums and armies of skeletons at will, something I don't think they should do / are intented to, by safeguards in the system);

- Let them do really cool stuff in a martial way; wu-shu can give inspiration, high level maneuvers from the book of 9 swords as well; have fighters beat through obstacles, including magical force effects, with their sword, make 'em have supernatural senses, give 'em the ability to strike weak spots in enemies and cripple them in significant ways (hamper movement, spellcasting, whatever); We already have quite a lot of that (blindsense for rogues or blindsight as a fighting style, action surge to move twice as fast as a normal human, barbarians seing a mile far and ending up stronger than giants, monks being invisible and teleporting through darkness at will, etc.), but it could be more at the highest tier.

- I'd remove some of the worst offenders from the spell list as well (force cage, simulacrum, place restrctions on conjuration and animate dead spells)

- the question 'what do we expect of tier 4' is a good one. Personally I don't think it is supposed to take place in weird environments (though planescape definitely gives that option); but the more you are of the opinion that a tier 4 party should function fine submerged in lava or should be able to fight in the clouds in freezing temperatures where normal vision doesn't function, the more the current martial classes are 'not enough'. I don't think this is fitting for D&D, not from a point of view from the game (the class system is obvious not supporting that), nor from its background (Frodo didn't throw Sauron in the lake of Mount Doom to have a wrestling match with him, and even Gandalf just beat the crap out of the Balor, eh, Balrog in Moria - classical LotR example here but most epic fantasy doesn't end with someone's simulacrum throwing a meteor shower, while the protagonist wizard dies but who care's he has a clone in his extradimensional tower, while the party's druid is an immortal Giant Ape).

[Asisreo1]

Lets be clear, by "Caster v Martials," we're talking about Wizards, Clerics, maybe Bards vs Barbarians and Fighters that aren't the Arcane/Eldritch Variety.

And by "unbalanced," we're saying that one class has broad abilities that can help make situations easier while the other is specialized in a certain fighting style.

I mean, its all about what you value in a class that determines whether its good or bad. The fighter and wizard really could never be compared, because at level 20, if the wizard gets hit by a Kraken's Tentacle attack legendary action just before their next turn and then gets swallowed by the Kraken, they're in a huge bind because they can't easily push the 50 damage threshold (they're blinded).

A Fighter/Barbarian could easily push through that no problem.

The higher level the characters are, the more their health differences become greater, too. Max level Wizards have an average of 102 HP meanwhile a max level fighter can expect to have an average HP of 224, more than double their HP. Barbarians will have an average of 285 HP and are likely taking those with resistance, making them extremely resilient.

You may not value resilience since why not just be a wizard and prevent them from hitting you at all? but if that's truly your experience, your DM is far too kind. Nearly every monster up their ranges from genius to superintelligent and they understand the basic premise of dispatch glass cannons first.

[stoutstien]

Lets be clear, by "Caster v Martials," we're talking about Wizards, Clerics, maybe Bards vs Barbarians and Fighters that aren't the Arcane/Eldritch Variety.

And by "unbalanced," we're saying that one class has broad abilities that can help make situations easier while the other is specialized in a certain fighting style.

I mean, its all about what you value in a class that determines whether its good or bad. The fighter and wizard really could never be compared, because at level 20, if the wizard gets hit by a Kraken's Tentacle attack legendary action just before their next turn and then gets swallowed by the Kraken, they're in a huge bind because they can't easily push the 50 damage threshold (they're blinded).

A Fighter/Barbarian could easily push through that no problem.

The higher level the characters are, the more their health differences become greater, too. Max level Wizards have an average of 102 HP meanwhile a max level fighter can expect to have an average HP of 224, more than double their HP. Barbarians will have an average of 285 HP and are likely taking those with resistance, making them extremely resilient.

You may not value resilience since why not just be a wizard and prevent them from hitting you at all? but if that's truly your experience, your DM is far too kind. Nearly every monster up their ranges from genius to superintelligent and they understand the basic premise of dispatch glass cannons first.

Most full casters are more hearty than pure martials. HP is important but it's only one part of the mitigation/avoidance puzzle.

When super smart NPCs focus on casters first its verification that they are seen as more powerful and a larger threat than their martial counterpart. In a lot of ways that even worse then the
Meta comparison between them.

[Valmark]

Lets be clear, by "Caster v Martials," we're talking about Wizards, Clerics, maybe Bards vs Barbarians and Fighters that aren't the Arcane/Eldritch Variety.

And by "unbalanced," we're saying that one class has broad abilities that can help make situations easier while the other is specialized in a certain fighting style.

I mean, its all about what you value in a class that determines whether its good or bad. The fighter and wizard really could never be compared, because at level 20, if the wizard gets hit by a Kraken's Tentacle attack legendary action just before their next turn and then gets swallowed by the Kraken, they're in a huge bind because they can't easily push the 50 damage threshold (they're blinded).

A Fighter/Barbarian could easily push through that no problem.

The higher level the characters are, the more their health differences become greater, too. Max level Wizards have an average of 102 HP meanwhile a max level fighter can expect to have an average HP of 224, more than double their HP. Barbarians will have an average of 285 HP and are likely taking those with resistance, making them extremely resilient.

You may not value resilience since why not just be a wizard and prevent them from hitting you at all? but if that's truly your experience, your DM is far too kind. Nearly every monster up their ranges from genius to superintelligent and they understand the basic premise of dispatch glass cannons first.

Tbh, if a wizard is trying to get out of a Kraken through damage they either got their spell selection wrong or are running on fumes in the first place.

Also there's an average of 2 hp (per level) of difference between a wizard and a fighter (5 with Barbarians)- there's nowhere near that difference in hp unless one pushed their Con substantially higher then the other (yes, even considering the max hp at 1st level).

[Asisreo1]

Most full casters are more hearty than pure martials. HP is important but it's only one part of the mitigation/avoidance puzzle.

When super smart NPCs focus on casters first its verification that they are seen as more powerful and a larger threat than their martial counterpart. In a lot of ways that even worse then the
Meta comparison between them.
That is literally what it is.

They are a much larger threat than the fighter, but the fighter doesn't go down easily at all while the wizard does. Its the Glass Cannon concept. Why not disarm them first, then take them out? Its the smartest way to do that.

The game gives Spellcasters a bit of a break because they know a savvy DM will recognize this and the system gives those casters even a fighting chance.



Tbh, if a wizard is trying to get out of a Kraken through damage they either got their spell selection wrong or are running on fumes in the first place.

Also there's an average of 2 hp (per level) of difference between a wizard and a fighter (5 with Barbarians)- there's nowhere near that difference in hp unless one pushed their Con substantially higher then the other (yes, even considering the max hp at 1st level).

There isn't much of a "wrong spell selection." Being blinded and restrained is a big deal for spellcasters. Maybe they can Dimension Door out but that doesn't stop the Kraken from just retrying.

The worse part might be that instead of the Wizard, it goes for the Cleric and Dimension Door is usually off the table, period.

But Fighters and Barbarians are literally incentivized to pump their Consitution as high as possible with Barbarians going as high of a score as 24. They are much more likely to get +5 or +7 constitution than a wizard is. Especially if they go for AC and Initiative rather than HP.

[Hael]

Even if you were to fix the broken spells (true poly, wish, simulacrum, shape change etc), fix the broken features (peace domain, hexblade, arcane abeyance, portent, illusion etc). Make it so minionmancy doesn’t break bounded accuracy. You still face what I would call the fundamental problem. Namely, how do you stop a creative caster from doing busted things with perfectly RAI or RAW spells or features.

Take the bard who can convince (with an almost unmissable persuasion DC) the king to loan him a bunch of catapults to take out the BBEG from the opposing kingdom. He pops his demi-plane and then a hundred catapults fire simultaneously essentially blowing up an entire encounter of content instantly.

Or the diviner, who gets the exact route to the BBEG, along with the patrol routes from divination. Then uses pass without trace and then ethereals through a wall and kills the BBEG in his sleep.

We don’t like to play that way, instead opting to enjoy the content and combat for what it’s intended to be, but DND is very much designed to do the other way, and casters will always dominate for that aspect.

[stoutstien]

That is literally what it is.

They are a much larger threat than the fighter, but the fighter doesn't go down easily at all while the wizard does. Its the Glass Cannon concept. Why not disarm them first, then take them out? Its the smartest way to do that.

The game gives Spellcasters a bit of a break because they know a savvy DM will recognize this and the system gives those casters even a fighting chance.


There isn't much of a "wrong spell selection." Being blinded and restrained is a big deal for spellcasters. Maybe they can Dimension Door out but that doesn't stop the Kraken from just retrying.

The worse part might be that instead of the Wizard, it goes for the Cleric and Dimension Door is usually off the table, period.

But Fighters and Barbarians are literally incentivized to pump their Consitution as high as possible with Barbarians going as high of a score as 24. They are much more likely to get +5 or +7 constitution than a wizard is. Especially if they go for AC and Initiative rather than HP.

That's not what a glass cannon is. A glass cannon is someone who focuses on offense at the expense of defense to the point of becoming a liability. Casters don't really have that much in terms of opportunity cost in this regard.
Take your kraken for example, the cleric is both a larger threat than a barbarian and has layers of defense such as freedom of movement and protection for X spells to make it a loss cause to try to burn them down before anyone else. At the same time the cleric is providing recovery for the party so not dealing with them also has it's cost. That's before using any of they really good options the cleric has to deal with this challenge
The barbarian on the other hand is probably being flung away and is wasting turns just getting back in range and unless they are a single subclass that has additional resistances they are still taking a good chunk of hp damage.

A DM actively punishing a caster for the sake of try to keep the game balanced isn't a good thing.

[Captain Panda]

What kind of argument is this? Just because it isn't, why shouldn't people fix it? It's actually not very hard (well, it is and isn't but still, there's a lot you can do that isn't done in the core rules to this end).

You shouldn't fix it because it's not broken. If your campaign gets to 17+, anticipate extremely powerful characters. That's intentional. Casters shine at 17+, also just part of the game. Melee got to shine early on, and those levels are much more commonly played. There's no reason to take a hatchet to the wizard/sorcerer's toys.

Granted, I'm generally not a fan of DMs doing huge reworks to the system in general, and especially to arbitrarily nerf things. The results tend to be very sloppy. DMs aren't game designers, when you buy the books for a system you're outsourcing that job to people better at it than you and most rule "fixes" I see on forums tend to be things that would upset players and destroy fun. Nerfing high level spells? A prime example of that. High level spells should be awesome. If you don't want to deal with them, stick to lower level games.

[Tanarii]

Take the bard who can convince (with an almost unmissable persuasion DC) the king to loan him a bunch of catapults to take out the BBEG from the opposing kingdom. He pops his demi-plane and then a hundred catapults fire simultaneously essentially blowing up an entire encounter of content instantly.Yeah ... that's not really possible in 5e.


Or the diviner, who gets the exact route to the BBEG, along with the patrol routes from divination. Then uses pass without trace and then ethereals through a wall and kills the BBEG in his sleep.You're going to have to break down all the assumptions and spells for this one, because generally speaking that's not going to happen either. Scry and Fry isn't going to happen because scrying isn't that easy and the Teleport miss chance makes it very dangerous to use. And one-shotting someone in their sleep isn't that easy, especially for a creature designated as a BBEG.


Most full casters are more hearty than pure martials. HP is important but it's only one part of the mitigation/avoidance puzzle.
Right. Martials also typically have far more AC than non-Cleric full casters.

Also worth noting that defensive use of spells means they can't be used offensively. And IMX players are relatively loathe to do that with a fairly limited resource.

[Eldariel]

You shouldn't fix it because it's not broken. If your campaign gets to 17+, anticipate extremely powerful characters. That's intentional. Casters shine at 17+, also just part of the game. Melee got to shine early on, and those levels are much more commonly played. There's no reason to take a hatchet to the wizard/sorcerer's toys.

Granted, I'm generally not a fan of DMs doing huge reworks to the system in general, and especially to arbitrarily nerf things. The results tend to be very sloppy. DMs aren't game designers, when you buy the books for a system you're outsourcing that job to people better at it than you and most rule "fixes" I see on forums tend to be things that would upset players and destroy fun. Nerfing high level spells? A prime example of that. High level spells should be awesome. If you don't want to deal with them, stick to lower level games.

Wait, when do warriors get to shine? I have a hard time thinking of a single level where the most powerful option for a 2 SR 8 encounter day is not a caster...

As for fixing, it has been well established since 3e that designers are awful at balance. Why would you trust anyone who releases e.g. Simulacrum or Animate Dead as written with balance? Based on past precedent, a sane WotC consumer doesn't pay for the fluff but a decently written base system with a big following where you can take the baseline and then rewrite the custard (monsters, classes, spells, weapons, etc.) to be usable and interesting (most fail at one or the other, as has been the case in every WotC edition).

[Asisreo1]

That's not what a glass cannon is. A glass cannon is someone who focuses on offense at the expense of defense to the point of becoming a liability. Casters don't really have that much in terms of opportunity cost in this regard.

They have this liability as soon as they take the class and sacrifice Heavy Armor Proficiency/AC-boosting Passives, Higher HD, defensive features, and saving throw choices.

But I'm not saying they are literal glass cannons (they can be) but the concept of them being high-risk, high-reward characters are similar.

They risk: Their Action, their other potential output for the spell slot, higher defenses.

They get: opportunities to change the nature of the encounter presented before them.

Its not even a guarantee that what they do makes their situation better, let alone that the effect even successfully occurs.

From an economic standpoint, they need something good because of how if something goes bad, it could be put on their shoulders as bad decision making.



Take your kraken for example, the cleric is both a larger threat than a barbarian and has layers of defense such as freedom of movement and protection for X spells to make it a loss cause to try to burn them down before anyone else. At the same time the cleric is providing recovery for the party so not dealing with them also has it's cost. That's before using any of they really good options the cleric has to deal with this challenge
The barbarian on the other hand is probably being flung away and is wasting turns just getting back in range and unless they are a single subclass that has additional resistances they are still taking a good chunk of hp damage.

A DM actively punishing a caster for the sake of try to keep the game balanced isn't a good thing.
The Kraken still swallows the Cleric, though because it only needs to successfully grapple it as a legendary action then use its swallow attack. This means the Cleric never gets a turn to either cast Freedom of Movement or even to benefit from its ability since they can't move before the swallow happens. The restrained condition also sticks because its not based on a spell. but I think you're also missing something.

The cleric was well prepared for this encounter and took Freedom of Movement, which isn't a popular cleric spell even at high levels. The cleric had to give up: his action that could have been cast doing something else, his spell slot which could have been better applied, and his spells prepared which could literally have been any other spell. A steep cost for something relatively niche, but if he doesn't prepare that, he's getting messed up.

But its not countering the casters, its common sense.

As a player, who are you taking out first? The Archmage who has multiple ways to dispatch your characters relatively quickly or the Nalfeshnee who basically just hits hard and has alot of health and resistance?

For me, we focus the lich first so that we don't have to worry about weird effects that we can't counter then we focus the Nalfeshnee while recovering our health. Its only good tactics since one literally takes twice as long to take down but the other has all the crazy effects.

[Tanarii]

Wait, when do warriors get to shine? I have a hard time thinking of a single level where the most powerful option for a 2 SR 8 encounter day is not a caster...Martials dominate through at least level 7. Given that's roughly 2/5 of the typical game, and per WotC the typical game never reaches the point at which full casters dominate (still not happening at level 13), martials are in pretty good shape for most games.

But that's neither here nor there for someone that feels that full casters are too much in late Tier 3 or in Tier 4.

[Eldariel]

Martials dominate through at least level 7. Given that's roughly 2/5 of the typical game, and per WotC the typical game never reaches the point at which full casters dominate (still not happening at level 13), martials are in pretty good shape for most games.

That's only true if casters refuse to use their broken options. Conjure Animals and Animate Dead completely take over the game on level 5 (24 hours/day for Animate Dead, 2 hours/day for Conjure Animals), and before level 5 warriors don't really do much more than casters even on the at-will level so it's hard to recommend them over characters with encounter winners.

Never have I been in a situation where a party would've traded one of their casters for an extra martial. The other way around though? Plenty. The way parties die is via attrition and that pretty much always occurs as a result of lacking resources.

[Tanarii]

Never have I been in a situation where a party would've traded one of their casters for an extra martial. The other way around though? Plenty. The way parties die is via attrition and that pretty much always occurs as a result of lacking resources.
Almost every TPK I've seen was because the party didn't have enough martials, so when they stuck their neck out to push on just a little further they got whomped. The way parties die is through attrition, and it pretty much always occurs by overly dependent on LR resources, and being up the creek when they run out.

That running out issue becomes less problematic somewhere between 7-9, as LR resources on Spellcasting full casters really hits its stride.

[Captain Panda]

Wait, when do warriors get to shine? I have a hard time thinking of a single level where the most powerful option for a 2 SR 8 encounter day is not a caster...


At levels 1-4, any optimized martial (GWM or sharpshooter) will provide consistent, sustained damage that a caster cannot compete with even when they use resources, and they're just blown out of the water when they're using cantrips. Casters catch up at 5-10, but still have to pay close attention to spell consumption until 8 or 9.



As for fixing, it has been well established since 3e that designers are awful at balance. Why would you trust anyone who releases e.g. Simulacrum or Animate Dead as written with balance?

Having every class in perfect balance really isn't their goal. 5e is way better than 3e in giving martials a time to shine and casters a time to shine. If you're looking for perfectly balanced classes, this game is going to constantly disappoint you.

[JoeJ]

Wait, when do warriors get to shine? I have a hard time thinking of a single level where the most powerful option for a 2 SR 8 encounter day is not a caster...

The mean number of encounters per adventuring day is not the only relevant variable; the range matters as well. A greater range, still with the same mean, results in greater uncertainty about how many more encounters remain before the next LR and a greater need to conserve spells in case there's another big fight ahead.

[Eldariel]

Almost every TPK I've seen was because the party didn't have enough martials, so when they stuck their neck out to push on just a little further they got whomped. The way parties die is through attrition, and it pretty much always occurs by overly dependent on LR resources, and being up the creek when they run out.

That running out issue becomes less problematic somewhere between 7-9, as LR resources on Spellcasting full casters really hits its stride.

Mmm. It's my experience that it's more often the case that the casters were played suboptimally (i.e. poor spell preparation, poor resource use, etc.) or did something ill-advised, generally both. If you don't have enough LR resources, of course you'll run out. The more casters you have, the more LR resources. On low levels, caster at-will is largely equivalent to non-caster at-will and their resources are just plain superior. There's no comparison, provided casters are built and played intelligently (like putting 16 in Dex and using Light Crossbow or Longbow instead of casting 1d10 Firebolts by default).


At levels 1-4, any optimized martial (GWM or sharpshooter) will provide consistent, sustained damage that a caster cannot compete with even when they use resources, and they're just blown out of the water when they're using cantrips. Casters catch up at 5-10, but still have to pay close attention to spell consumption until 8 or 9.

Umm... First of all, GWM/Sharpshooter is equally available to all casters and their base damage is the exact same on 1-4. GWM especially, there's basically no advantage to even having the fighting style (for archery that at least is nice). But even then, comparing it to using resources...Sleep does way more on average than multiple GWM/SS attacks (given their hit rates). Thunderwave too if it's hitting 2+ targets. Magic Missile even on a single target (level 1 enemies have AC in the 12-15 range which means an SS Fighter is looking at ~55% chance of hitting at best so all their damage does anything for only half the levels, and many typical enemies for this level have such low HP that most of the damage is wasted). Also, Wizard specifically has the most reliable access to Advantage on level 1 (familiar, minor illusion, mold earth vs. stone nothing on other classes) and remains competitive in that sense for a long while.

The correct feat for maximising low level efficiency is actually Crossbow Expert or Polearm Master, since the hit rate loss makes GWM/SS pretty unreliable unless you have a reliable access to Advantage (level 2-3 for some classes but even then, the actual damage gain is modest compared to an extra attack or two in the case of PAM). Again, this is mostly class agnostic; Crossbow Expert Wizard is competitive with Crossbow Expert Fighter on level 1 and if the Wizard is going Bladesinger specifically, they'll actually gain decent returns on that feat investment (taking SS later).


Having every class in perfect balance really isn't their goal. 5e is way better than 3e in giving martials a time to shine and casters a time to shine. If you're looking for perfectly balanced classes, this game is going to constantly disappoint you.

It's one thing to have obscure abilities that are OP in a non-apparent ways and then a number of class/subclass iconic abilities (Conjure Animals is absolutely the face of Druid and Animate Dead is pretty essential for a Necromancer) that are completely broken in a way that's totally apparent by game design and yet were completely ignored.

[Asisreo1]

Mmm. It's my experience that it's more often the case that the casters were played suboptimally (i.e. poor spell preparation, poor resource use, etc.) or did something ill-advised, generally both. If you don't have enough LR resources, of course you'll run out. The more casters you have, the more LR resources. On low levels, caster at-will is largely equivalent to non-caster at-will and their resources are just plain superior. There's no comparison, provided casters are built and played intelligently (like putting 16 in Dex and using Light Crossbow or Longbow instead of casting 1d10 Firebolts by default).

That's the thing, though. Not everyone has an eye for tactics and being able to play well without being a great strategist is a good design. Why make the 14 yo play a wizard when they'd be far more comfortable playing a Barbarian?

Optimal play for magic casters should be rewarded because unoptimal play is more harshly punished.

[Waazraath]

Even if you were to fix the broken spells (true poly, wish, simulacrum, shape change etc), fix the broken features (peace domain, hexblade, arcane abeyance, portent, illusion etc). Make it so minionmancy doesn’t break bounded accuracy. You still face what I would call the fundamental problem. Namely, how do you stop a creative caster from doing busted things with perfectly RAI or RAW spells or features.

Take the bard who can convince (with an almost unmissable persuasion DC) the king to loan him a bunch of catapults to take out the BBEG from the opposing kingdom. He pops his demi-plane and then a hundred catapults fire simultaneously essentially blowing up an entire encounter of content instantly.

Or the diviner, who gets the exact route to the BBEG, along with the patrol routes from divination. Then uses pass without trace and then ethereals through a wall and kills the BBEG in his sleep.

We don’t like to play that way, instead opting to enjoy the content and combat for what it’s intended to be, but DND is very much designed to do the other way, and casters will always dominate for that aspect.

Tanarii also replied to this, but in addition to that: this is a splendid example on how people try to make magic do things that is neither RAW nor RAI, or anywhere near those. The bard loans a bunch of catapults with a skill check: cool. Has nothing to do with casting, but hey. He can borrow 100 catapults, great. Now he opens his demiplane, he picked with magical secrets, and finds out you enter it through a 'shadowy door' and is 30 bij 30 ft. Persuading the workmen to disassemble some catapults and build them up again, he can fit 4 in his demiplane. Ignoring the time that this takes, and that the world moves on in this time, he goes to the lair of the BBEG, loads and mans the catapults, opens his demi-plane, and finds out they have to shoot out of a door. Even if this somehow works, or the DM has a /very/ liberal ruling on what constitutes a 'door', you have 4 catapults of damage on the outer wall of the enemies lair. 'The encounter didn't got blown up, but the complex is on alert though. At the cost of a magical secret, and an 8th level slot.

As for the following example: 'the diviner gets the exact route to the BBEG', ok, pray, how? Cause I don't see any spell that does that. Divinition gives you a cryptical riddle, great, you get a rhyme to show you the safest route but a warning that you won't be able to avoid everything. Pass without trace only improves a stealth check, not exactly fail-safe, and useless if some parts of a complex are designed to be impossible to sneak past. Ethereal to get into the bedroom and auto kill the boss... I've seen 0 campaigs where such an ending would be possible, homebrew or designed. How do you prevent tiamat entering the martial plane this way, or fight an elemental prince, or, or, or...

This is more a discription of a free form RPG where you can say "I win cause I use magic", and has little to do with DnD.

My main problem with these examples isn't even that they are not RAW or RAI, but that they are sold as 'creative'. No, this isn't creativity. This is "trying to abuse the rules". Spells are one of the parts of the game that are described in a very definite way, and with reason. They don't what's not there. The only times this stuff will work is:
1) by going far beyond RAW and RAI and making spells much more powerful than they are Cause Magic;
2) having a game world where Only The Party Knows How Magic Works - in a serious world there will not be just a wall and moat around a castle - if magic exists and is common enough to be heard of, there will be defenses against both mundane and magic, and the more higher level you become and the more challanging the enemies become, the better both defenses will be. Assume that by the level you know Etheralness the BBEG does little else than locking his door to stay safe, and yeah... Magic Is Very Powerful. Who would have thought?


The mean number of encounters per adventuring day is not the only relevant variable; the range matters as well. A greater range, still with the same mean, results in greater uncertainty about how many more encounters remain before the next LR and a greater need to conserve spells in case there's another big fight ahead.

+1. As a DM, I greatly vary the range, from 1 to 10+, sometimes with lots of opportunty to short rest, sometimes really little of none. That keeps everybody on their toes about available resources and greatly discourages throwing powerful spells or abilities with limited uses (also rage, for example) against every encounter.


But even then, comparing it to using resources...Sleep does way more on average than multiple GWM/SS attacks (given their hit rates). Thunderwave too if it's hitting 2+ targets.

I keep finding it amazing how we can have so different experiences. We discussed sleep in the past, I've never seen it do the things that are claimed at these boards. Most encounters you fell 1 or 2 enemies, and they are sometimes woken up. Fine use of a spell, bfc, took out quite some actions. But I've never seen it being the great encounter ender the way you suggest. Even more with Thunderwave. I used it plenty with my tempest cleric, but even then (maximized!) I didn't get more millage out of it than my martial companion (in that campaign a berserker barbarian wielding a greataxe. The con save is quite often made by enemies

[Hael]

My main problem with these examples isn't even that they are not RAW or RAI, but that they are sold as 'creative'. No, this isn't creativity. This is "trying to abuse the rules".

Sorry, both of you missed the point completely. I wasn't trying to describe an exact exploit, specific and perfect in all detail and waste everyone's time writing a compendium. Suffice it to say that it could be done with enough time and preparation, and indeed has been done since the dawn of DnD. Ok? Throw in a bunch of premade wards, enlarge/reduces, contingencies, bags of holding etc. Whatever it takes. Maybe some of those steps require creativity. Maybe they don't. It depends the edition what you can get away with. It doesn't have to be catapults. It can be several elites in the kings army. It doesn't have to be a magical secret, it can be the wizard in the party.

However, what is the case is that bypassing of content in what I would call cheesy ways will always exist.. And as I was hoping to show, this isn't really an abuse of any specific rule.. And the amount of ways that it can exist is multiplied exponentially as a caster. You simply don't have to wrack your brain looking for a solution when you have access to demiplanes and silver tongue, but you do when you're a tough guy in platemail with 8 cha/8int, and have no idea how to get into the floating enemy castle other than rushing headfirst into the enemy.

[JoeJ]

You simply don't have to wrack your brain looking for a solution when you have access to demiplanes and silver tongue, but you do when you're a tough guy in platemail with 8 cha/8int, and have no idea how to get into the floating enemy castle other than rushing headfirst into the enemy.

And if you're the silver tongued swashbuckler rogue with 20 Cha and Expertise in Persuasion, you'll be able to persuade the king to lend you a batallion of elite griffin riders that you can lead into battle against that floating castle. And if you're nice, you might even give the 8 cha/8 int cleric a lift just in case somebody needs healing or something.

(IOW: straw man is very strawy.)

[Hael]

And if you're the silver tongued swashbuckler rogue with 20 Cha and Expertise in Persuasion, you'll be able to persuade the king to lend you a batallion of elite griffin riders that you can lead into battle against that floating castle. And if you're nice, you might even give the 8 cha/8 int cleric a lift just in case somebody needs healing or something.


That is part of a different but related point incidentally, all exaggerations aside. Namely that skill checks (like spellcasting) ends up opening doors to things that are well beyond what simple martial prowess allows. The problem with certain skill checks, is that they are so powerful in principle, that the DM ends up *not* allowing them. So NO persuasion checks to the king. Or at least, he will only allow it with the most extreme care, and probably only for classes (like bards or rogues) where they have class features. So lo and behold. The only other dimension that is powerful enough that can possibly allow some martials to compete with spell casters, ends up frequently cutoff in tier3-4.

Notice an interesting trend. A rogue for instance has a good amount of features (in every edition) that are tied into sleight of hand, and lockpicking. But how often does that actually help him perse at high lvls. Maybe a few times every module regardless of lvl, he will pick a chest for the party and that will be fine, or maybe swipe a nobles magic ring. Maybe he picks a lock to escape from a dungeon. All that opportunity cost leveling up a skill, that never gets more important relatively speaking than what it was at lvl 2-3.

And if it does get more important, like persuasion checks with powerful creatures that scale in what they can offer, DM is now typically in a position where he won't allow it. But that's not the case with spell casting. It simply grows and grows in relative power, almost without end, and there is no real way the DM can curtail it without going against what seems to be the real intent of the game.

[dmhelp]

I actually started the thread to get feedback on the effect of two house rules. A lot of people brought up solutions to Martial vs Caster imbalance but no one commented on the rules. I had buried some of my own discussion under spoiler so I modified the original post to have that out in the open.

The two rules were:
1. At level 13 & 16 single classed martials & Rangers pick powers (with DM approval) from a second subclass (from PHB/XGE, also can be from another class if thematically appropriate), with DM approval the order of subclass power progression may be altered to intermix the two subclasses

2. May only animate/create/summon/control one "summoned creature" at a time (not counting familiars or class features)

Under my discussion of rule #2 it said the effect would mean:
1. Simulacrum would count as your only "summoned creature" and could not summon other creatures.
2. One planar binding would count as your only summoned creature and you could not go beyond that.
3. Conjure Animals and Animate Dead would be limited to 1 creature, essentially your one summoned creature.

I had some discussion of rule #1. Essentially you could cherry pick (with DM approval) some abilities to add some utility to your martial character. So any martial could take Use Magic Device at level 13 and Thief's Reflexes at level 16. A Four Elements Monk could instead take Combat Superiority/Student of War as their first power and Additional Maneuvers (5 total)/Additional Superiority Die (5 total)/Relentless as their second power to give them some non ki dependent tricks to complement their spells.


And if you're the silver tongued swashbuckler rogue with 20 Cha and Expertise in Persuasion, you'll be able to persuade the king to lend you a batallion of elite griffin riders that you can lead into battle against that floating castle. And if you're nice, you might even give the 8 cha/8 int cleric a lift just in case somebody needs healing or something.
I think what I've seen suggested as the solution to super high ability skill checks is to just keep using DC 10 and 15 checks for everything. Just like hitting an 11 AC with a 38 to hit doesn't get you any extra unless you roll a natural 20. Hitting the DC 15 check to persuade the king to help you with a 40 is the same as a 15. So the king will help you. The elite griffin battallion is out of the picture though. That encourages players to put expertise in things they have low abilities in (except perhaps athletics due to no fail grappling).

[Tanarii]

The two rules were:
1. At level 13 & 16 single classed martials & Rangers pick powers (with DM approval) from a second subclass (from PHB/XGE, also can be from another class if thematically appropriate), with DM approval the order of subclass power progression may be altered to intermix the two subclassesWording feedback:
Rangers are one of the six Martials, so this is a little confusingly worded. What are you thinking of as a Martial? You probably should just list the included classes directly.

Also is this intending to allow any subclass feature, or is it the first one only, or any below the level (13/16 respectively)?

Opinion feedback:
IMX 13th level martials don't really need something to buff them up, certainly not an entire 2nd subclass feature.


2. May only animate/create/summon/control one "summoned creature" at a time (not counting familiars or class features)This really hurts Shepherd Druids. Maybe give them a special "2 creatures from Conjure spells" exception?

[Angelalex242]

Who's actually using Animate Dead?

If a Necromancer PC is animating corpses all over the place, most of the world will assume he's evil, and parties of adventurers will be out to slay him and his pals, most likely a holy hit squad of clerics and paladins.

[PhoenixPhyre]

First step: Enforce the limits on magic that are already there. No more "creative" uses of spells (that are really just cherry-picking half-remembered scientific knowledge and tendentious readings of spells). Spells do exactly and only what they say they do. Nothing more, nothing less. And should be read restrictively. RAW is not the physics of the world, nor is real world physics the physics of the world.

Second step: Remember that in a world that has had magic for a long time, there will be countermeasures. The party aren't the first set of high-power people to come along, and society has adapted.

Third step: Slay the Guy at the Gym. A DC 30 STR check can apply more than 3000 lbs of force (to move an immovable rod). Let high-power people do high-power things without spells.

Fourth step: Stop making adventures that rely on having particular spells (and only spells) at particular junctures. If the party comes up with a clever solution that doesn't rely on spells, let it work (or at least let them try without unnecessarily increasing the difficulty).

Fifth step (optional): Don't chase the optimization game. Playing the game much closer to the stock assumptions tones things way down IMX.

Sixth step (optional): Tone down a few of the particular bad offenders (I'm looking at you, simulacrum).

The first four get you 85%[1] of the way there, and are really just playing by the book without hangovers from 3e where magic could do anything and martials sucked by design.

[1] number pulled from the same place most statistics are.

[Dork_Forge]

Most full casters are more hearty than pure martials. HP is important but it's only one part of the mitigation/avoidance puzzle.

When super smart NPCs focus on casters first its verification that they are seen as more powerful and a larger threat than their martial counterpart. In a lot of ways that even worse then the
Meta comparison between them.

A higher total HP is never all a martial has, usually higher AC, ways to reduce damage or heal themselves, other defenses (Evasion, Indomitable).

Personally my thought on targeting casters is two fold: 1) they'll die faster and that starts a death spiral 2) if they're concentrating you can possibly end the effect, something most martials don't really have to worry about.


Tbh, if a wizard is trying to get out of a Kraken through damage they either got their spell selection wrong or are running on fumes in the first place.

Smallest of nitpicks, even at level 20, I wouldn't call only having level 1-3 slots available 'on fumes.'


Also there's an average of 2 hp (per level) of difference between a wizard and a fighter (5 with Barbarians)- there's nowhere near that difference in hp unless one pushed their Con substantially higher then the other (yes, even considering the max hp at 1st level).

The comparison is between a Con +1 Wizard and a Con +5 Fighter, given the difference in prioritising stats, prioritising hp and the Fighter having more ASIs this doesn't really seem far fetched. IME most Wizards at the table have a +1/+2 Con, seen a fair few with a +0.


Wait, when do warriors get to shine? I have a hard time thinking of a single level where the most powerful option for a 2 SR 8 encounter day is not a caster...

Martials shine very much so in tier 1 (and at least some of tier 2) over casters, if only because spell slots are so limited whilst uses are so plentiful.


That's only true if casters refuse to use their broken options. Conjure Animals and Animate Dead completely take over the game on level 5 (24 hours/day for Animate Dead, 2 hours/day for Conjure Animals), and before level 5 warriors don't really do much more than casters even on the at-will level so it's hard to recommend them over characters with encounter winners.

Why on Faerun would 4 skeletons or zombies take over the game? You're burning all of your higher level slots to do this, for minions that will likely die early on in the day.


Conjure Animals is concentration and not liable to break anything that involves AOE or, say a ladder, between encounters.



Never have I been in a situation where a party would've traded one of their casters for an extra martial. The other way around though? Plenty. The way parties die is via attrition and that pretty much always occurs as a result of lacking resources.

This is pretty situational clearly, it could very well be that the games you play in favour casters more or the people playing martials did so poorly or focused on RP at the detriment of their combat. We don't know the answers to this, but you clearly have a bias towards caster superiority from these threads, and of course that's okay, we all have biases, but you're not really supporting your argument with how a caster would have been better off. Having more slots doesn't necessarily amount to net gain when said slots could just be spent protecting themselves when martials would have had a high enough AC or soaked the damage in extra hp.


Mmm. It's my experience that it's more often the case that the casters were played suboptimally (i.e. poor spell preparation, poor resource use, etc.) or did something ill-advised, generally both. If you don't have enough LR resources, of course you'll run out. The more casters you have, the more LR resources. On low levels, caster at-will is largely equivalent to non-caster at-will and their resources are just plain superior. There's no comparison, provided casters are built and played intelligently (like putting 16 in Dex and using Light Crossbow or Longbow instead of casting 1d10 Firebolts by default).

At low levels caster at will is worse as it is a single die that doesn't add a modifier.

Saying that caster resources are 'just plain superior' is also baseless without an actual argument, how are they superior? Because they have spells? Rage is a pretty great resource, Action Surge is one of the most powerful features in the game (and recharges on a short rest), most Rogues don't even function on resources, as long as they're up they can go on just as effectively.

Putting a 16 in Dex and using a ranged weapon could be seen as 'playing intelligently.' You could also see it as realising at will caster options are poor in the early game, so you're using a martial option (worse than a martial would).


Umm... First of all, GWM/Sharpshooter is equally available to all casters and their base damage is the exact same on 1-4. GWM especially, there's basically no advantage to even having the fighting style (for archery that at least is nice). But even then, comparing it to using resources...Sleep does way more on average than multiple GWM/SS attacks (given their hit rates). Thunderwave too if it's hitting 2+ targets. Magic Missile even on a single target (level 1 enemies have AC in the 12-15 range which means an SS Fighter is looking at ~55% chance of hitting at best so all their damage does anything for only half the levels, and many typical enemies for this level have such low HP that most of the damage is wasted). Also, Wizard specifically has the most reliable access to Advantage on level 1 (familiar, minor illusion, mold earth vs. stone nothing on other classes) and remains competitive in that sense for a long while.

Yes, casters can take those feats too, but you're acting like it's exactly the same for a full caster to take it as a martial and that's just not true. For the most part martials will have to make compromises to utilise those feats and then usually don't have the core chassis support to get the most out of them. It's like saying that a High Elf Champion could take Warcaster... sure they can, doesn't mean it's a good idea or of the same value as a Cleric taking it.

Familiars die, quickly, when used in combat unless the DM is incredibly permissive. In early game that means a lot of down time and damn near bankrupting yourself to make regular use of that tactic. On the same track, isn't the familiar tactic also a Martial option? I mean Ritual Caster and Magic Initiate are feats a martial can take.

Minor Illusion and Mold Earth are not 'reliable' means of gaining advantage.



The correct feat for maximising low level efficiency is actually Crossbow Expert or Polearm Master, since the hit rate loss makes GWM/SS pretty unreliable unless you have a reliable access to Advantage (level 2-3 for some classes but even then, the actual damage gain is modest compared to an extra attack or two in the case of PAM). Again, this is mostly class agnostic; Crossbow Expert Wizard is competitive with Crossbow Expert Fighter on level 1 and if the Wizard is going Bladesinger specifically, they'll actually gain decent returns on that feat investment (taking SS later).

How is a CBE Wizard competitive with a CBE Fighter? Where are they getting prof with a hand crossbow? Is the Fighter for some reason not taking Archery? A single class Wizard is not going to get as much out of an archery like playing style as a Fighter, their damage and hit rates just won't compare.


It's one thing to have obscure abilities that are OP in a non-apparent ways and then a number of class/subclass iconic abilities (Conjure Animals is absolutely the face of Druid and Animate Dead is pretty essential for a Necromancer) that are completely broken in a way that's totally apparent by game design and yet were completely ignored.

Minionmancy in general could use some work to not be cumbersome, but they certainly aren't comletely broken.


That is part of a different but related point incidentally, all exaggerations aside. Namely that skill checks (like spellcasting) ends up opening doors to things that are well beyond what simple martial prowess allows. The problem with certain skill checks, is that they are so powerful in principle, that the DM ends up *not* allowing them. So NO persuasion checks to the king. Or at least, he will only allow it with the most extreme care, and probably only for classes (like bards or rogues) where they have class features. So lo and behold. The only other dimension that is powerful enough that can possibly allow some martials to compete with spell casters, ends up frequently cutoff in tier3-4.

You're basically dividing the game into hitting things, casting spells and skill checks, then saying that skill checks are cut off to martials? A persuasion roll doesn't guarantee you get what you want, if the king isn't inclined to help to begin with, he could just not help. Even assuming that he does, there's two Fighter subclasses that give bonuses to persuasion, various other chances at being good at checks (especially since Tasha's), it's hardly cut off from martials unless it's cut off from everyone.


Notice an interesting trend. A rogue for instance has a good amount of features (in every edition) that are tied into sleight of hand, and lockpicking. But how often does that actually help him perse at high lvls. Maybe a few times every module regardless of lvl, he will pick a chest for the party and that will be fine, or maybe swipe a nobles magic ring. Maybe he picks a lock to escape from a dungeon. All that opportunity cost leveling up a skill, that never gets more important relatively speaking than what it was at lvl 2-3.

...What opportunity cost is there in 'leveling up' a skill? You can put your Expertise choices whereever you please and those specific things will be above average at least because they key off of Dex. You're also reducing thieves' tools to just lockpicking, they also are used to diasble (and possibly set) traps. I'm running a 13th level game right now and the Barbarian/Rogue MC stepped in to disarm a trap the rest of the party would otherwise have had to just risk tripping.

As the levels have gone up, I have been using more traps, i don't think that's an unusual trend either.


And if it does get more important, like persuasion checks with powerful creatures that scale in what they can offer, DM is now typically in a position where he won't allow it. But that's not the case with spell casting. It simply grows and grows in relative power, almost without end, and there is no real way the DM can curtail it without going against what seems to be the real intent of the game.

The DM can also be reasonable without letting skill checks be win buttons, I've never really seen this expectation that skills break the game before.

Spellcasting is not limitless, the DM is well within his right to say no to things that aren't RAW, RAI, sensical or balanced. The DM has the final say on how the game actually runs, to assume they'd lord that power over skill checks but allow certain spells to break the game is something I can't wrap my head around.

[Eldariel]

At low levels caster at will is worse as it is a single die that doesn't add a modifier.

Both have 1d8+3 at range.


Saying that caster resources are 'just plain superior' is also baseless without an actual argument, how are they superior? Because they have spells? Rage is a pretty great resource, Action Surge is one of the most powerful features in the game (and recharges on a short rest), most Rogues don't even function on resources, as long as they're up they can go on just as effectively.

Action Surge just means "deal double damage in a turn" for most Fighters since they can't really do much with actions; occasionally some grapple/shove setups or item use but it's rare enough for that to be worth it unless you're a caster. Now, double damage is nice and gives Fighter great single-target nova but that's it.

Rage is indeed strong but it's a far more limited resource than spells and also has a far more restricted range of applications. 1st level spell can end an encounter in Sleep or open up entirely new options in e.g. Disguise Self or provide broad longterm benefits in Protection from Good and Evil or make enemies regret focusing you in Shield or so on. Rage gives you +X damage per hit (where X is a small number), resistance to damage and advantage on Str checks.

It's nice but it's only nice when you need to tank a lot and the encounter lasts a while that you really get value out of it. So great ability but with very few daily uses (comparable to top level spell slots) and only one kind of encounter it really excels in.

Overall, martial resources just don't measure up. You can't AOE hordes with any of them (kiiinda with Action Surge but awfully effortlessly), you can't really solve all that many encounter types, etc. Like Action Surge > Dodge is actually occasionally nice but it costs you your ONLY use for basically first three tiers (and unlike with Shield, you need to predict when you'll need it). Action Surge IS the kind of ability martials could use more of but it needs to be more than 1/SR. Rage is also nice but it could use alternatives. None are as flexibly powerful as spell slots.

If I wrote the Fighter, AS would be 1/Tier/SR or more. And rage would have variety of options at least for some subclasses (and Barb offense would not cease improving in Tier 3-4 in general). I appreciate the drive for simplicity but it comes at too grest a cost (though nothing is simpler than giving simple power; it's just number buffing).


Putting a 16 in Dex and using a ranged weapon could be seen as 'playing intelligently.' You could also see it as realising at will caster options are poor in the early game, so you're using a martial option (worse than a martial would).

Those options are class agnostic. It doesn't make a caster any worse at casting to use L. Crossbow when it's optimal. They even have the proficiency to. Most martials don't use it any better; the only ones that do are Rogue and then ones who picked Archery fighting style (and then resource users on high levels). The difference between a Wizard and a Monk/non-BM Fighter (or pre-subclass Fighter)/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin is pretty close to 0. Only the ones who specifically build towards Archery will have the fighting style. And most importantly, casters have ways to buff their attacks too. E.g. Wizard Familiar offers Advantage until enemies spend a turn or two killing it (and thus kill themselves) which is a bigger bonus than fighting style for instance.


Yes, casters can take those feats too, but you're acting like it's exactly the same for a full caster to take it as a martial and that's just not true. For the most part martials will have to make compromises to utilise those feats and then usually don't have the core chassis support to get the most out of them. It's like saying that a High Elf Champion could take Warcaster... sure they can, doesn't mean it's a good idea or of the same value as a Cleric taking it.

Anyone with Extra Attack is more or less on the same boat in this regard. Spells complement martial options comparably well or better than many martial options. The practical difference between a Bladesinger/Swords/Valor Bard and Fighter/Monk/Pally/Ranger at weapon use on Tier 2 is pretty marginal if both have the feats. Meanwhile the difference at resource use is vastly different; casters have more and more powerful resources.


Familiars die, quickly, when used in combat unless the DM is incredibly permissive. In early game that means a lot of down time and damn near bankrupting yourself to make regular use of that tactic. On the same track, isn't the familiar tactic also a Martial option? I mean Ritual Caster and Magic Initiate are feats a martial can take.

1) Enemies can't afford to focus on low damage/low importance targets when they're in an existential struggle; they'll have to focus on the highest priority target and it's pretty hard to argue that it's a familiar unless you can afford to AOE it in lieu of hitting the actual targets killing you.
2) Bankrupting yourself? For the money you use to eventually buy your fullplate you can summon 150 familiars. Think about that for a second.


Minionmancy in general could use some work to not be cumbersome, but they certainly aren't comletely broken.

Not "completely broken"? When will people stop with this rules apologism and just admit that Core 5e rules have serious balance issues? There's even a fairly frequent thread on these forums of people just noticing in practice that yes, e.g. Shepherd Druid is just broken. It's at least as powerful as two average characters.

What level of issue would it take for people to actually equally consider the option that rules as written have serious balance issues and that the game is likely better if you address them to a degree? This stance is just incomprehensible to me. Same occurred in 3e. People were arguing Druid is fine and Monk is apparently a Wizard counter because...WotC released the rules as they are. That's it. No critical thinking, no mathematical analysis, just statement that it's fine because it's released that way/it wasn't a problem in my game (where these options had generally never been intelligently deployed).

[stoutstien]

A higher total HP is never all a martial has, usually higher AC, ways to reduce damage or heal themselves, other defenses (Evasion, Indomitable).

Personally my thought on targeting casters is two fold: 1) they'll die faster and that starts a death spiral 2) if they're concentrating you can possibly end the effect, something most martials don't really have to worry about.


In my experiences the discrepancy in defensive abilities from class to class aren't large enough to be considered a real factor outside of those who invest heavily into it.

The whole caster and martial divine isn't very clear to being with in 5e. Probably better to just isolate the individual features that are not quite cutting it like indomitable, brutal critical, or nature's veil replacing hide in plain sight.

[ZRN]

First step: Enforce the limits on magic that are already there. No more "creative" uses of spells (that are really just cherry-picking half-remembered scientific knowledge and tendentious readings of spells). Spells do exactly and only what they say they do. Nothing more, nothing less. And should be read restrictively. RAW is not the physics of the world, nor is real world physics the physics of the world.

Second step: Remember that in a world that has had magic for a long time, there will be countermeasures. The party aren't the first set of high-power people to come along, and society has adapted.

Third step: Slay the Guy at the Gym. A DC 30 STR check can apply more than 3000 lbs of force (to move an immovable rod). Let high-power people do high-power things without spells.

Fourth step: Stop making adventures that rely on having particular spells (and only spells) at particular junctures. If the party comes up with a clever solution that doesn't rely on spells, let it work (or at least let them try without unnecessarily increasing the difficulty).

Fifth step (optional): Don't chase the optimization game. Playing the game much closer to the stock assumptions tones things way down IMX.

Sixth step (optional): Tone down a few of the particular bad offenders (I'm looking at you, simulacrum).

The first four get you 85%[1] of the way there, and are really just playing by the book without hangovers from 3e where magic could do anything and martials sucked by design.

[1] number pulled from the same place most statistics are.

Really good summary, I'd say. I'd add another point (in tandem with #2): a high-tier adventure should involve very non-mundane locations and circumstances, and that can actually HELP martials stay more relevant. For example, if your enemy's fortress is on another plane, all the sudden a bunch of mid-level arcane tricks (scrying, etc) don't work. Yes, you're reliant on a spellcaster to transport you there, but the litmus test shouldn't be "can this campaign be handled with zero magic" - it's "does the campaign challenge all the characters in a way that ensures they all feel powerful and relevant."

With steps 1 and 3 here, you're also getting at a non-obvious but important difficulty in 5e DMing: the system for spells is incredibly specific and exception-based, but the system for skills and ability checks is much broader. This means a good DM has to encourage creative thinking with skills and other mundane abilities, but be fairly restrictive with "creative" uses of magic. This can FEEL like you're being biased in favor of martial classes, since you're saying "yes, and" to the rogue player and "no, sorry" to the wizard player, but it's not about power-balancing the classes; it's about adjudicating the various interlocking rules systems as each of them is intended.

[dmhelp]

Wording feedback:
Rangers are one of the six Martials, so this is a little confusingly worded. What are you thinking of as a Martial? You probably should just list the included classes directly.

Also is this intending to allow any subclass feature, or is it the first one only, or any below the level (13/16 respectively)?

Opinion feedback:
IMX 13th level martials don't really need something to buff them up, certainly not an entire 2nd subclass feature.

This really hurts Shepherd Druids. Maybe give them a special "2 creatures from Conjure spells" exception?

Thanks for the feedback!

I always considered it split into Martials, Half Casters, and Casters. I don't use Artificers but are they considered Martials then? So I can phrase it Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rangers, & Rogues if people have a different definition of Martial.

I had laid it out in the original post but it was under spoiler originally:
"This benefit is lost if you later choose to multiclass. This is to add more utility to single classed martials and to make them more competitive with casters, Paladins, sorcadins, and highly optimized multiclassed characters. The level 13 power would be tier 1-3 (a tier 3 power means the 3rd power granted by a subclass, e.g. Dragon Wings is a 3rd tier Sorcerer subclass power) and the level 16 power would be tier 2-4 (a higher tier than the first power).

Any thematically and mechanically appropriate martial or Ranger subclass could be chosen (in most cases appropriate powers come from the main class, Fighter, or Ranger; e.g. only a Barbarian could choose rage based powers, only a Monk could choose ki powers, and only a Rogue could choose powers depending on Sneak Attack), but no one can choose Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster (as a second subclass). Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters (as a primary subclass) may choose arcane subclasses (such as Fiend from Warlock). Rangers may use divine subclasses (such as Circle of the Land from Druid).

E.g. for an Arcane Trickster one of the many valid options would be: Dragon Ancestor/Draconic Resilience @ 13 followed by Dragon Wings @ 16."

So the Arcane Trickster example picks up a 1st tier power followed by a 3rd tier power. The Four Elements example picks up a 1st tier power followed by a 4th tier power. The Use Magic Device example is a 3rd tier power followed by a 4th tier power.

I picked the level (13 & 16) after reading: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?626450-At-what-level-does-caster-over-martial-dominance-start

My main concern was: is it too much to give Martials two extra subclass powers if I'm also limiting players to one animated/created/conjured creature at a time? Or do Casters get enough things like teleportation, wall of force, dc 19 spells, etc. that it is ok to add something on to Martials. And that is why I started this thread.

Regarding conjure animals, in my original example:
"A level 14 or higher Necromancy Wizard could control one creature, plus one additional skeleton/zombie, plus a commanded undead (three total creatures). A level 6 or higher Spores Druid could control one zombie from their class feature plus one more creature. A level 14 or higher Shepherd Druid that went unconscious could control 4 animals from their class feature plus one more creature."

I could possibly make exceptions for Animate Dead and Conjure Animals with some other limit for them and get rid of the class feature exception (the original proposal allows Shepherd Druids essentially 5 summons after they go unconscious). That is maybe a better idea.

[Hael]

You're basically dividing the game into hitting things, casting spells and skill checks, then saying that skill checks are cut off to martials? A persuasion roll doesn't guarantee you get what you want, if the king isn't inclined to help to begin with, he could just not help. Even assuming that he does, there's two Fighter subclasses that give bonuses to persuasion, various other chances at being good at checks (especially since Tasha's), it's hardly cut off from martials unless it's cut off from everyone.
...What opportunity cost is there in 'leveling up' a skill? You can put your Expertise choices whereever you please and those specific things will be above average at least because they key off of Dex. You're also reducing thieves' tools to just lockpicking, they also are used to diasble (and possibly set) traps. I'm running a 13th level game right now and the Barbarian/Rogue MC stepped in to disarm a trap the rest of the party would otherwise have had to just risk tripping.
The DM has the final say on how the game actually runs, to assume they'd lord that power over skill checks but allow certain spells to break the game is something I can't wrap my head around.

Yes, im saying 90% of class and subclass features are likely related to combat, skills, or spells, with the rest mostly ribbons. I'm not saying that they're cut off to martials (on the contrary), i'm saying that combat, social and skills tend follow a progression that leaves their relative importance invariant. So for instance a fighter in a four man party might do 35% of the party damage at lvl 4. At lvl 20, he's probably still doing ~35% of the party damage.

With persuasion skills... Lets say at lvl 3 you are tasked with finding some poachers. You might have to have a persuasion check to convince the barman to give you a clue about some shady locals. Well, at lvl 15, that same sort of thing might be to the kingdom's wizard, for some sort of clue that might help your investigation. Notice that you could ask a lot more from the latter in principle (like magic items or troops from the kings arsenal), but in practice the DM won't allow that sort of thing, b/c it tends to be fundamentally disruptive to the story he wants to make. Hence, the relative power of skill checks to a story tends to stay the same relatively speaking. The stories simply don't allow for kings to lend armies, at least when its not specifically accounted for by the DM.

Not so with magic spells. They tend to scale quadratically in the parlance, constantly getting better level after level. To the point where they are now decidedly central elements to a story. In tier 4, the wizard might simply be living in his own palace, and the whole story might be about BBEGs going after one of his/her artifacts. Further, each new tier allows entire encounter classes to be solved effectively. In tier 2, it might be groups of small enemies that are swarming. Well in tier 4, it might be about how to solve planar travel, and planar battles.

So the opportunity cost really is in the fact that martials spend most of their class features in combat or at best in 'horizontal' skills, and having those elements never really improve (relatively speaking) as a percent of what the game is about.

[JoeJ]

First step: Enforce the limits on magic that are already there. No more "creative" uses of spells (that are really just cherry-picking half-remembered scientific knowledge and tendentious readings of spells). Spells do exactly and only what they say they do. Nothing more, nothing less. And should be read restrictively. RAW is not the physics of the world, nor is real world physics the physics of the world.

IMO a significant part of this is to treat conjured/created minions as exactly that: minions. They are allied NPCs, not extensions of the caster's body (yes, even a simulacrum. Especially a simulacrum.) Minions have every bit as much personality as any other creature of the same type (For zombies, that's nearly none. For a simulacrum of a high-level bard, it's an awful lot.) You can allow the player to run them in combat if it's more convenient that way, just as you might allow a player to run the mercenary hirelings they recruited at the last town, but only so long as the player treats them as separate characters and not an extension of their own character.

[king_steve]

I always considered it split into Martials, Half Casters, and Casters. I don't use Artificers but are they considered Martials then? So I can phrase it Barbarians, Fighters, Monks, Rangers, & Rogues if people have a different definition of Martial.


I think most people generally consider Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Range, Rogue and Paladin to be the 6 Martials.

Artificers are half-casters but they don't have martial weapon proficiency by default (one subclass gives them martial proficiency).

It would probably be easier to just list the classes you mean specifically. Although the grouping is a bit odd, its not exactly clear why Paladin's are left out.



My main concern was: is it too much to give Martials two extra subclass powers if I'm also limiting players to one animated/created/conjured creature at a time? Or do Casters get enough things like teleportation, wall of force, dc 19 spells, etc. that it is ok to add something on to Martials. And that is why I started this thread.


Personally, I think thats to much. If your players are combat focused and they pick combat focused subclass powers and then they would likely outshine any spellcasters. Letting them pick up two additional subclass powers is a pretty extreme boost.

With these rules I don't think I'd want to play a spellcaster, but maybe that's what your intent, is to discourage full spellcasters.

I think that you can add a lot of utility to martials through magic items that can help make up for the general utility of full spellcasters. For example, if one of your PC's found a Cubic Gate then you can have an entire party of martials able to travel the planes. A +1/2/3 weapons and armor do not require attunement so martials should still be able to pick up other items if they want to increase their utility.

[Angelalex242]

Paladins almost never need help to sit at the big kids table. The same cannot be said of any other martial.

[Fable Wright]

The two rules were:
1. At level 13 & 16 single classed martials & Rangers pick powers (with DM approval) from a second subclass (from PHB/XGE, also can be from another class if thematically appropriate), with DM approval the order of subclass power progression may be altered to intermix the two subclasses

I think this is a poor and/or confusing way to handle it, and provided an unaddressed suggestion.


[In Tier 3/4] Sharpshooter Fighters and Paladins/Sorcadins are kings of damage at this point. Rangers, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians struggle a bit. Rather than enable trap options with weird combos and buffing the martials that already do good, though?

Just make -5 to hit/+10 damage not require a feat and be usable with any weapon. Monks are now competitive with damage.

After level 13, all Barbarians gain the benefits of Frenzy without drawbacks.

Rogues get refluffed Greenflame and Booming Blade for free. Call them Dirty Trick and Hamstring.

Finally, move Swift Quiver to a level 4 Ranger spell that doesn't take a spell known.

I think that would solve pretty much all of those classes' problems at higher levels relative to Fighter? I'm open to feedback, though.


2. May only animate/create/summon/control one "summoned creature" at a time (not counting familiars or class features)

Under my discussion of rule #2 it said the effect would mean:
1. Simulacrum would count as your only "summoned creature" and could not summon other creatures.
2. One planar binding would count as your only summoned creature and you could not go beyond that.
3. Conjure Animals and Animate Dead would be limited to 1 creature, essentially your one summoned creature.

Do not allow simulacrum. It's so leaps-and-bounds better than any other summon that it gets absurd.

I'm not talking about using Simulacrum to duplicate the party Wizard, though that's bad enough; using Simulacrum to duplicate the party's Sharpshooter Fighter is where you get to the "why am I here" territory. Duplicating another character's build is not OK for class balance.

For Conjure Animals/Animate Dead:


[In tier 4] Summons in combat were a categorically bad idea from the high ACs and immunity/ resistance to nonmagical BPS and concentration was regularly interrupted by 20+d6 damage AoE effects. An army of skeletons would have been useless in the final fight.

I do not think limiting them to one creature is necessary for Tier 3/4.

However, in the discussion of the Conjure Multiple Creatures in regards to Shepherd Druid:


A Shepherd Druid with Quickling summons from an 8th level slot would have had pretty comparable damage [to an optimized Martial], though summons would go poof every time a high damage effect targeted them. Letting said Druid use Wolves, Velociraptors, or Flying Snakes en masse against a vulnerable target would very dramatically outdamage [an optimized Martial], though.

Depending on your optimization tolerance, I proposed the following rule to put a kibosh on Conjure overshadowing martials:


3. No Pixies, no CR 1/4th options from Conjure Animals.

If a Shepherd Druid using spell slots alone is roughly equivalent to an optimized Martial, a Shepherd Druid using spell slots + a single Planar Binding'd creature will outdamage a martial character. I do not believe it would be fair to Shepherd Druids to take the legs out from under them entirely by banning their playstyle. I'd rather ban the problematic Planar Binding entirely, and let the Druid have to choose between maintaining an Annis Hag (which is fairly powerful!) and maintaining some Quicklings. Ban the outlier power options (like 8 summons for Conjure Animals, Simulacrum, and Planar Binding) and I think things will work out better than you fear.

[Eldariel]

If a Shepherd Druid using spell slots alone is roughly equivalent to an optimized Martial, a Shepherd Druid using spell slots + a single Planar Binding'd creature will outdamage a martial character. I do not believe it would be fair to Shepherd Druids to take the legs out from under them entirely by banning their playstyle. I'd rather ban the problematic Planar Binding entirely, and let the Druid have to choose between maintaining an Annis Hag (which is fairly powerful!) and maintaining some Quicklings. Ban the outlier power options (like 8 summons for Conjure Animals, Simulacrum, and Planar Binding) and I think things will work out better than you fear.

I rather recommend fixing the outliers. Simulacrum is easy enough to fix; I personally run it like in 3e where it's ½ power compared to the original creature (takes some finagling and DM tooling with what entails "half innate casting" on monsters but it's generally not very difficult to do). It's still great but it's no longer "Create a second character of equal or higher power level to my own".

Then Conjure Animals/Woodland Beings, just roll with the 1/2/3/4, which is eminently more fair in a bounded accuracy system. This makes the 1 and 2 options actually reasonable (though you'd probably have to make the 1 around CR 3-4 for it to be as strong as two CR1s probably; progression from one to two is the most radical increase in power).

Planar Binding is the only spell where I really wonder about how to handle it. Having it tie your Concentration would be one option; that way you can have a near permanent minion but it takes the resource which allows producing other minions and powerful effects. But it kinda flies in the face of the fantasy of the ability. One other option, perhaps more in line with the original fantasy of the spell, is to have Planar Binding just bind the minion but not guarantee fealty or loyalty and make it less forced to follow your orders.

[dmhelp]

[In Tier 3/4] Sharpshooter Fighters and Paladins/Sorcadins are kings of damage at this point. Rangers, Rogues, Monks, and Barbarians struggle a bit. Rather than enable trap options with weird combos and buffing the martials that already do good, though?

Just make -5 to hit/+10 damage not require a feat and be usable with any weapon. Monks are now competitive with damage.

After level 13, all Barbarians gain the benefits of Frenzy without drawbacks.

Rogues get refluffed Greenflame and Booming Blade for free. Call them Dirty Trick and Hamstring.

Finally, move Swift Quiver to a level 4 Ranger spell that doesn't take a spell known.

I think that would solve pretty much all of those classes' problems at higher levels relative to Fighter? I'm open to feedback, though

I think allowing weird combos is fun but I could limit it to barb, monk, ranger, and rogue. I’d prefer a single rule to cut down on my tendency to rule bloat. Barbarians can choose frenzy, d6+half level damage, or a utility buff this way. I don’t mind helping players min max within their character concept.

I’d also prefer to avoid a long list of banned spells or spell nerfs (and I agree that an unabused simulacrum is very powerful alone but at least it is costly and doesn’t heal). It is why I keep coming back to the single creature only rule.



Personally, I think thats to much. If your players are combat focused and they pick combat focused subclass powers and then they would likely outshine any spellcasters. Letting them pick up two additional subclass powers is a pretty extreme boost.

With these rules I don't think I'd want to play a spellcaster, but maybe that's what your intent, is to discourage full spellcasters.
Ok, maybe I just give Barbarians, monks, rangers, and rogues a single subclass power at level 15 to dial it back? I want casters to be a viable option I just think using a bunch of minions detracts from the team aspect of the party (in addition to slowing things down).

[Eldariel]

I think allowing weird combos is fun but I could limit it to barb, monk, ranger, and rogue. I’d prefer a single rule to cut down on my tendency to rule bloat. Barbarians can choose frenzy, d6+half level damage, or a utility buff this way. I don’t mind helping players min max within their character concept.

I’d also prefer to avoid a long list of banned spells or spell nerfs (and I agree that an unabused simulacrum is very powerful alone but at least it is costly and doesn’t heal). It is why I keep coming back to the single creature only rule.

Single creature only rule "works" but it also kinda neuters the Shepherd and the Necromancer beyond recognition and makes the level 3-4 minionmancy spells as well as Animate Objects kinda useless, since most of their power comes from the horde option. And it leaves Simulacrum as ridiculously broken. So I think you need a bit more than that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with giving all the subclass abilities per ce, but it doesn't really address the larger issue and it does lead to homogeneity among the martial options. That might or might not be an issue depending on your players, but anyways, even if you do that it'll still fall short.

[Dork_Forge]

Both have 1d8+3 at range.

I don't think we'll agree about a caster picking up a crossbow is a 'at will caster option.' Yes they can do it, but there's nothing caster about it.


Action Surge just means "deal double damage in a turn" for most Fighters since they can't really do much with actions; occasionally some grapple/shove setups or item use but it's rare enough for that to be worth it unless you're a caster. Now, double damage is nice and gives Fighter great single-target nova but that's it.

It can mean double damage, it can also mean applying more effects to the target (Battle Master and Rune Knight), or setting casting a spell and attacking (Eldritch Knight), Maybe some Telekinesis (Psi Warrior).

Just because a feature is normally used for one thing, doesn't mean it always has to be. It's the most versatile feature in the game if you don't blanket list spellcasting as a feature.


Rage is indeed strong but it's a far more limited resource than spells and also has a far more restricted range of applications. 1st level spell can end an encounter in Sleep or open up entirely new options in e.g. Disguise Self or provide broad longterm benefits in Protection from Good and Evil or make enemies regret focusing you in Shield or so on. Rage gives you +X damage per hit (where X is a small number), resistance to damage and advantage on Str checks.

It's a resource where each use will most likely last the entire encounter that you trigger it, getting more uses of it would greatly detract from it being resource based at all.

You're not looking at Rage as a whole, you're looking only at the core chassis. Every subclass builds on Rage for its features, including damage and defense. Mentioning a utility use like Disguise Self is out of place, the Barbarian gets that elsewhere, it has no place in Rage.


It's nice but it's only nice when you need to tank a lot and the encounter lasts a while that you really get value out of it. So great ability but with very few daily uses (comparable to top level spell slots) and only one kind of encounter it really excels in.

You can't directly compare number of uses of Rage to number of uses of high level slots, because the duration, use and effectiveness of those slots varies so much.


Overall, martial resources just don't measure up. You can't AOE hordes with any of them (kiiinda with Action Surge but awfully effortlessly), you can't really solve all that many encounter types, etc. Like Action Surge > Dodge is actually occasionally nice but it costs you your ONLY use for basically first three tiers (and unlike with Shield, you need to predict when you'll need it). Action Surge IS the kind of ability martials could use more of but it needs to be more than 1/SR. Rage is also nice but it could use alternatives. None are as flexibly powerful as spell slots.

The AOE part just isn't true, for example the Arcane Archer and some Rage auras, with more actual class features and class spells to help with this.

Comparing Action Surge as a defensive resource to Shield is not a good comparison imo, you should be looking at something like Second Wind for the Fighter, or the Psi Knights ability or... Shield for an EK. This also doesn't account for background balancing: Wizards and Sorcerers don't have armor proficiency and have lower hit die, Shield largely just brings them up to par defensively with other classes.

Your comparisons are also not really accounting for the fact that spell slots are, by and large, long rest resources so should be more plentiful/powerful than short rest resources. They also have to be more flexible because that's a huge part of the chassis of a spellcaster (or roughly 95% of a Wizard). You don't really get many other resources (if you get any), so they have to be flexible. That flexibility is also a bad thing, you might have used the slot you need on something else so you don't have x spell when you need it.


If I wrote the Fighter, AS would be 1/Tier/SR or more. And rage would have variety of options at least for some subclasses (and Barb offense would not cease improving in Tier 3-4 in general). I appreciate the drive for simplicity but it comes at too grest a cost (though nothing is simpler than giving simple power; it's just number buffing).

That would make Action Surge too powerful and open up a design space hole later in the class.

Rage does have options in subclasses.

I don't think simplicity is really a problem here, Rage can be quite a lot of things to track when it's in play for example.


Those options are class agnostic. It doesn't make a caster any worse at casting to use L. Crossbow when it's optimal. They even have the proficiency to. Most martials don't use it any better; the only ones that do are Rogue and then ones who picked Archery fighting style (and then resource users on high levels). The difference between a Wizard and a Monk/non-BM Fighter (or pre-subclass Fighter)/Barbarian/Ranger/Paladin is pretty close to 0. Only the ones who specifically build towards Archery will have the fighting style. And most importantly, casters have ways to buff their attacks too. E.g. Wizard Familiar offers Advantage until enemies spend a turn or two killing it (and thus kill themselves) which is a bigger bonus than fighting style for instance.

Most martials can use a heavy crossbow instead, casters only choose light crossbow because it's the best option available.

I'm not sure why a Barbarian or Paladin are using a cross bow as their go to at will to begin with, their at will would be melee (which would be better) and again, they can choose to use a H Crossbow.

Monks at will is two attacks a turn with their modifier to damage.

This Find Familiar thing is a huge pet peeve of mine. No, Find Familiar is not better at buffing ranged combat than Archery: it depends on you having the familiar (something usually assumed, which shouldn't be), and depends on the familiar going before you, or someone else not attacking that creature before you get a chance to. Even if you get advantage, that isn't necessarily better, you can just roll badly twice. Fixed bonuses are reliable and that's a benefit in and of itself.


Anyone with Extra Attack is more or less on the same boat in this regard. Spells complement martial options comparably well or better than many martial options. The practical difference between a Bladesinger/Swords/Valor Bard and Fighter/Monk/Pally/Ranger at weapon use on Tier 2 is pretty marginal if both have the feats. Meanwhile the difference at resource use is vastly different; casters have more and more powerful resources.


You're comparing core chassis vs subclasses that are invested in weapon use and it's still not true. Or would you really argue that a Bladesinger makes just a good a SS as an Archery Samurai or a Battlemaster?

Of course resource use if different, they're largely built on different design principles. I'll just point out however that martials resources do increase (more and larger Superiority die, more ki (and more options to use them on), higher level slots for the half casters (meaning bigger smites for the Paladin), or their actual abilities scale agnostic of a resource which leveled spells don't do.


1) Enemies can't afford to focus on low damage/low importance targets when they're in an existential struggle; they'll have to focus on the highest priority target and it's pretty hard to argue that it's a familiar unless you can afford to AOE it in lieu of hitting the actual targets killing you.

All it takes is a single enemy attack to kill it, if you want to talk the plausability of targetting the familiar, high. If it's a single hard hitting enemy then sure ignore, multiple enemies have no real reason to ignore it and the day is more than the encounter. If your familiar dies then you won't have it for scouting and the next combat unless you can conveniently spend an hour and ten minutes immediately after.


2) Bankrupting yourself? For the money you use to eventually buy your fullplate you can summon 150 familiars. Think about that for a second.

Terrible comparison. The heavy armor martial saves their cash and improves their overall position. The Wizard is burning cash to maintain their strategy, FF isn't the only spell that will be draining your gold (nevermind finding a spell book or scroll) and 10GP might not sound like much until you're having to resummon your familiar multiple times a day, slowing down your wealth progression.

Worth noting FF doesn't exist in a vacuum, you know that the Wizard has to pay for that crossbow and bolts? So the start up cost for a 1st level Wizard to do what you propose is 36GP. Noble gives the most starting gold and that's 25GP, so how are you making this work?


Not "completely broken"? When will people stop with this rules apologism and just admit that Core 5e rules have serious balance issues? There's even a fairly frequent thread on these forums of people just noticing in practice that yes, e.g. Shepherd Druid is just broken. It's at least as powerful as two average characters.

I'm not a rules apologist, the core ruleset certainly has issue, I just don't agree with you about this.

Shepherd Druid doesn't come online until 5th level and then has a wide range of issues with it. If a DM is being overwhelmed by something like this then they just don't know how to deal with casters or mobs. The biggest issue with something like this imo is just QOL, it's boring to sit around whilst a bazillion wolves go.

I can easily assume how Conjure would be a problem through convenient minion spam, but you've not really explained Animate Dead. Even if you're a Necromancer it isn't breaking anything, and yes I've DM'd a Necromancer (8th level). If you're amassing ridiculous amounts of those zombies or skeletons, sure... but how are you amassing them? How are you calculating the opprtunity cost of burning your highest resources on a bunch of low end mobs that bring about their own wide variety of problems.


What level of issue would it take for people to actually equally consider the option that rules as written have serious balance issues and that the game is likely better if you address them to a degree? This stance is just incomprehensible to me. Same occurred in 3e. People were arguing Druid is fine and Monk is apparently a Wizard counter because...WotC released the rules as they are. That's it. No critical thinking, no mathematical analysis, just statement that it's fine because it's released that way/it wasn't a problem in my game (where these options had generally never been intelligently deployed).

You've provided no mathematical analysis that I can remember, you're just making statements and referencing other threads. Maybe this will help your current view: RAW has serious issues in places, Simulacrum is ridiculous for example. Better?

Just because someone doesn't agree on what you see as an issue doesn't mean that they don't think that there are issues.


In my experiences the discrepancy in defensive abilities from class to class aren't large enough to be considered a real factor outside of those who invest heavily into it.

The whole caster and martial divine isn't very clear to being with in 5e. Probably better to just isolate the individual features that are not quite cutting it like indomitable, brutal critical, or nature's veil replacing hide in plain sight.

It's very character dependent, but defenses have different costs. A Wizard and Sorcerer are likely losing spells known and slots to defenses that are covered by simple armor proficienies in others for example.

I agree the 'divide' isn't really apparent and some specific things should be worked on.

Side note, I never really understood the dislike of Indomitable *shrug*


Yes, im saying 90% of class and subclass features are likely related to combat, skills, or spells, with the rest mostly ribbons. I'm not saying that they're cut off to martials (on the contrary), i'm saying that combat, social and skills tend follow a progression that leaves their relative importance invariant. So for instance a fighter in a four man party might do 35% of the party damage at lvl 4. At lvl 20, he's probably still doing ~35% of the party damage.

With persuasion skills... Lets say at lvl 3 you are tasked with finding some poachers. You might have to have a persuasion check to convince the barman to give you a clue about some shady locals. Well, at lvl 15, that same sort of thing might be to the kingdom's wizard, for some sort of clue that might help your investigation. Notice that you could ask a lot more from the latter in principle (like magic items or troops from the kings arsenal), but in practice the DM won't allow that sort of thing, b/c it tends to be fundamentally disruptive to the story he wants to make. Hence, the relative power of skill checks to a story tends to stay the same relatively speaking. The stories simply don't allow for kings to lend armies, at least when its not specifically accounted for by the DM.

Not so with magic spells. They tend to scale quadratically in the parlance, constantly getting better level after level. To the point where they are now decidedly central elements to a story. In tier 4, the wizard might simply be living in his own palace, and the whole story might be about BBEGs going after one of his/her artifacts. Further, each new tier allows entire encounter classes to be solved effectively. In tier 2, it might be groups of small enemies that are swarming. Well in tier 4, it might be about how to solve planar travel, and planar battles.

So the opportunity cost really is in the fact that martials spend most of their class features in combat or at best in 'horizontal' skills, and having those elements never really improve (relatively speaking) as a percent of what the game is about.


I'm really not following your logic here at all. Combat, Skill and Spells describes the majority of the game (which is combat focused largey by default). Skills are the mechanism to largely interact with the world outside of combat, you can't just discount them...

The Wizard in Tier 4 example also makes no sense. The Fighter in Tier 4 could live in his own keep and the BBEG might be after one of his artifacts. Wealth and magic items don't really have anything to do with spells.

This all seems like specific DM problems rather than game problems anyway? You're making an assumption about how DMs will rule, when there's no real reason to assume even most would rule that way (one of my groups is currently persuading various kings to build an army and have been for months now...).

[Jerrykhor]

Martials just need good high level features. I just saw a thread on Reddit asking people what they think of features like Monk's Timeless Body, and surprisingly the most upvoted comment says they are fine with it, and in fact want more of those ribbon abilities since they 'add flavour to RP'. I'm not sure what that means but I just thought, this is why people always multiclass when playing high level Martials - ****ty abilities like Timeless Body that is most possibly redundant depending on your race and age. At freaking level 15. Reddit folks aren't the sharpest tool in the shed.

We just need less Foe Slayer and more Quivering Palm.

[Asisreo1]

Overall, martial resources just don't measure up. You can't AOE hordes with any of them (kiiinda with Action Surge but awfully effortlessly), you can't really solve all that many encounter types, etc.
Hunter Rangers have a few AoE options, some of them are not even spells.

The same could be said for Elemonks.

[OldTrees1]

Martials just need good high level features. I just saw a thread on Reddit asking people what they think of features like Monk's Timeless Body, and surprisingly the most upvoted comment says they are fine with it, and in fact want more of those ribbon abilities since they 'add flavour to RP'. I'm not sure what that means but I just thought, this is why people always multiclass when playing high level Martials - ****ty abilities like Timeless Body that is most possibly redundant depending on your race and age. At freaking level 15. Reddit folks aren't the sharpest tool in the shed.

We just need less Foe Slayer and more Quivering Palm.

Ribbon abilities are generally characterized as interesting flavor with no significant impact on power. I would be hard pressed to find anyone that disliked a Free Ribbon ability. Unless they were overloaded with abilities to remember. So the people you polled might have been answering a different question than you intended to ask. Personally I would want Monk 15 to have a level appropriate feature in addition to rather than instead of Timeless Body.

[Fable Wright]

I think allowing weird combos is fun but I could limit it to barb, monk, ranger, and rogue. I’d prefer a single rule to cut down on my tendency to rule bloat. Barbarians can choose frenzy, d6+half level damage, or a utility buff this way. I don’t mind helping players min max within their character concept.

The problem with Frenzy is that the Exhaustion kills the use cases for it.

In tier 1-2, it's so powerful that it really should have a drawback. In tier 3, it's the only way that the Barbarian gets close to Fighter in terms of damage, and relying on a power that gives you Exhaustion (and thus gimp your ability to have fun in any out of combat stuff) is bad feels. This is why I suggested to just give it to everyone and buff it.



I’d also prefer to avoid a long list of banned spells or spell nerfs (and I agree that an unabused simulacrum is very powerful alone but at least it is costly and doesn’t heal). It is why I keep coming back to the single creature only rule.

Three in total is not a long list, and that's about the extent of what anyone here is suggesting. Single Creature Only is not a solution that works.


Ok, maybe I just give Barbarians, monks, rangers, and rogues a single subclass power at level 15 to dial it back? I want casters to be a viable option I just think using a bunch of minions detracts from the team aspect of the party (in addition to slowing things down).

This doesn't really help? No subclass feature will help Monks get comparable damage, no subclass feature will get Rangers bonus action attacks, no subclass feature will get Barbarians up to damage par with Fighter. Giving everyone Use Magic Device and (possibly) Thief's 'take two turns' ability will not increase balance, it'll just mean that everyone is a spellcaster now and hurt the class fantasy of a mundane swordsman on par with spellcasters.

[king_steve]

Ok, maybe I just give Barbarians, monks, rangers, and rogues a single subclass power at level 15 to dial it back? I want casters to be a viable option I just think using a bunch of minions detracts from the team aspect of the party (in addition to slowing things down).

A single subclass power at 15 might work to encourage more higher levels in those specific subclasses. I think you could also work it as an extra feat (possibly ASI?) in that range (somewhere between 10-15 maybe). That gives the player the freedom to pick up feat that might help improve the utility of their character. Monks are pretty MAD (often wanting dex and wix then usually con) and Rangers can be pretty MAD as well (if they are a str ranger or want to lean into spell casting), so giving them an extra ASI might be reasonable instead of a feat.

You could also look over the list of Supernatural Gifts/Marks of Prestige/Epic Boons in the DMG and in some of the other books. You could give one of those to your players at 10-15 based off the campaign. The Mythic Odyssey of Theros has a list of Supernatural Gifts in Chapter 1. The DMG has some in Chapter 7. The Explorers Guide to Wildmount has 1 supernatural gift (Hollow One makes you kinda half-undead).

[Eldariel]

Hunter Rangers have a few AoE options, some of them are not even spells.

The same could be said for Elemonks.

Sadly all of the mundane ones (and even the magical ones, stupid as that may be) are pretty terrible numbers-wise. I agree Volley/Whirlwind is something that should be available to martials as an AOE option but as it's written, it's just very difficult to actually put a dent into a horde with it unless they're exactly Kobolds. Sharpshooter does improve it somewhat, but still, 1d8+15 is only 19,5 average and at +8 at best (so even against a simple Orc with its awful AC, pretty much the optimal target, you're looking at 20% chance of missing and thus doing 0 damage). It's not as good as Fireball (28/14 out of a 3rd level slot so even on a successful save, Fireball averages similar damage to hit with Volley; and on level 11 you'll already have +4/+5 or DC 17 so save rates are similar) and it comes 5 levels later at lower efficiency and requiring a lot of investment (fighting style and a feat).

[Asisreo1]

Sadly all of the mundane ones (and even the magical ones, stupid as that may be) are pretty terrible numbers-wise. I agree Volley/Whirlwind is something that should be available to martials as an AOE option but as it's written, it's just very difficult to actually put a dent into a horde with it unless they're exactly Kobolds. Sharpshooter does improve it somewhat, but still, 1d8+15 is only 19,5 average and at +8 at best (so even against a simple Orc with its awful AC, pretty much the optimal target, you're looking at 20% chance of missing and thus doing 0 damage). It's not as good as Fireball (28/14 out of a 3rd level slot so even on a successful save, Fireball averages similar damage to hit with Volley; and on level 11 you'll already have +4/+5 or DC 17 so save rates are similar) and it comes 5 levels later at lower efficiency and requiring a lot of investment (fighting style and a feat).
You're missing the fact that its the best at-will AoE option that any character can ever take period.

It also stacks with spells that the Ranger can use like Lightning Arrow, Hail of Thorns, and Ensnaring Strike which most likely share the range of multiattack anyways.

Add an extra 4d8 damage to that sharpshooter hit and an extra 9/4.5 damage against save for everything else in its vicinity and you're looking at really good AoE damage. Not nearly as effective as the best AoE of casters, but thats by design.

[JoeJ]

You're missing the fact that its the best at-will AoE option that any character can ever take period.

Whirlwind Attack is at-will, but Volley really isn't unless you have an inexhaustable source of ammunition.

[Asisreo1]

Whirlwind Attack is at-will, but Volley really isn't unless you have an inexhaustable source of ammunition.
Ok, but by that logic, no ranged attacker is "at-will."

I track ammunition and I can say that most ranged characters grab more than enough arrows to last their expedition. Even if a town isn't present, crafting rules lets you grab quite a few arrows in a day just from the last 8 hours of a day.

[dmhelp]

The problem with Frenzy is that the Exhaustion kills the use cases for it.

In tier 1-2, it's so powerful that it really should have a drawback. In tier 3, it's the only way that the Barbarian gets close to Fighter in terms of damage, and relying on a power that gives you Exhaustion (and thus gimp your ability to have fun in any out of combat stuff) is bad feels. This is why I suggested to just give it to everyone and buff it.

This doesn't really help? No subclass feature will help Monks get comparable damage, no subclass feature will get Rangers bonus action attacks, no subclass feature will get Barbarians up to damage par with Fighter. Giving everyone Use Magic Device and (possibly) Thief's 'take two turns' ability will not increase balance, it'll just mean that everyone is a spellcaster now and hurt the class fantasy of a mundane swordsman on par with spellcasters.

I have made frenzy exhaustion last only 1 hour before, I’m just trying to limit my rule bloat. I figured most people would take zealots power over frenzy. If someone really wants frenzy thematically I can fix it with a magical tattoo.

Rangers could pick up Divine Strike for 2d8 since I was giving access to divine subclasses. Personally if I limit it to 1 power and I was playing a Ranger I’d consider broadening my spell list instead.

I’m not sure monks should do comparable damage since they can also stun. When I was considering giving power attack to everyone in the past I got feedback that it was bland to do that.

In the martial vs caster dominance thread most people suggested that it wasn’t damage that martials needed but utility.

One change I was considering was letting Magic Initiate unlock the subclasses of that class. So a dragonborn barbarian with magic init sorc could take Dragon Wings as their 2nd subclass power or a monk with magic init warlock could take Hurl Thru Hell.

[JoeJ]

In the martial vs caster dominance thread most people suggested that it wasn’t damage that martials needed but utility.

One change I was considering was letting Magic Initiate unlock the subclasses of that class. So a dragonborn barbarian with magic init sorc could take Dragon Wings as their 2nd subclass power or a monk with magic init warlock could take Hurl Thru Hell.

Okay, I can see how Dragon Wings could add some utility to a character that doesn't have any other way of flying. How is Hurl Thru Hell anything but combat power?

[dmhelp]

Okay, I can see how Dragon Wings could add some utility to a character that doesn't have any other way of flying. How is Hurl Thru Hell anything but combat power?

Fable Wright wanted Monks to do more damage is why I brought it up.

[Eldariel]

You're missing the fact that its the best at-will AoE option that any character can ever take period.

It also stacks with spells that the Ranger can use like Lightning Arrow, Hail of Thorns, and Ensnaring Strike which most likely share the range of multiattack anyways.

Add an extra 4d8 damage to that sharpshooter hit and an extra 9/4.5 damage against save for everything else in its vicinity and you're looking at really good AoE damage. Not nearly as effective as the best AoE of casters, but thats by design.

Unless you're literally killing an army, it takes a really odd adventure day for that to matter. The best at-will AOE, FWIW, is achievable through True Polymorph into e.g. an Ancient Dragon or whatever. But yes, this is "good" for at-will but at-will just isn't worth all that much unless you literally need to kill ten thousand Orcs or something (then it is pretty good, granted, and that's nice but that's an incredibly niche ability and one that only exists on a single Ranger chassis only on high levels). It's true that you can combine it with Lightning Arrow (which is a criminally undertuned spell as a Tier 3 class-specific one btw), but Ranger doesn't have a full caster's slots, and the others are mostly "meh" as well, especially given Ranger's chronic lack of spells known.

[Asisreo1]

Unless you're literally killing an army, it takes a really odd adventure day for that to matter. The best at-will AOE, FWIW, is achievable through True Polymorph into e.g. an Ancient Dragon or whatever. But yes, this is "good" for at-will but at-will just isn't worth all that much unless you literally need to kill ten thousand Orcs or something (then it is pretty good, granted, and that's nice but that's an incredibly niche ability and one that only exists on a single Ranger chassis only on high levels). It's true that you can combine it with Lightning Arrow (which is a criminally undertuned spell as a Tier 3 class-specific one btw), but Ranger doesn't have a full caster's slots, and the others are mostly "meh" as well, especially given Ranger's chronic lack of spells known.
I mean, this is 11th-level+.

It doesn't take nearly as many creatures as you're assuming to justify an AoE, it only takes 3 for that to be the best action in the round.

And at these levels, if the DM is giving any less than 3 enemies, even with legendary creatures, they're doing something wrong and botching their own encounter anyways. That's why Liches have Zombies, skeletons, etc. That's why Dragons have elementals. That's why Mummy Lords have Mummies. Vampires have Vampire Spawn. Mindflayers have slaves and intellect devourers.

The game encourages minion usage in the game.

I mean, look at any encounter table on any adventure and look at the XdX bandits/wolves/goblins/whatever on their tables. There's at least 2 on every table even in low levels where single target monsters are still somewhat viable.

By the way, Lightning Arrow is being extremely underrated. It activates on-attack rather than on-hit but it does a minimum of 3d8 damage on the target and a maximum of 6d8 single target damage which exceeds the same spell slot mileage a Paladin gets with theirs. Its also an AoE which affects creatures around it, further boosting its efficiency if the Ranger is patient.

Hail of Thorns is on-hit which makes it good when you're having bad dice rolls and of the same level slot, it does less damage to its target (additional 3d10 on fail) but it does more damage to the surrounding targets so it makes a very good AoE option for enemy groups of 4 or more since we're talking 24.5 average damage each at a grand total of 122.5 damage off a single spell. Realistically, its more often going to be used at 3 enemies which still gives 98 damage spread.

Everyone underestimates AoEs but strong attacks like Paladins usually aren't enough to one-shot minions anyway and a good AoE lets them set up 1-2 kills in their first round. It also gives other AoE attackers opportunity to unleash their best AoE option and remove a large chunk of the battlefield with more certainty than if you had only plinked a single enemy into AoE death range.

[x3n0n]

I mean, this is 11th-level+.

It doesn't take nearly as many creatures as you're assuming to justify an AoE, it only takes 3 for that to be the best action in the round.

And at these levels, if the DM is giving any less than 3 enemies, even with legendary creatures, they're doing something wrong and botching their own encounter anyways. That's why Liches have Zombies, skeletons, etc. That's why Dragons have elementals. That's why Mummy Lords have Mummies. Vampires have Vampire Spawn. Mindflayers have slaves and intellect devourers.

The game encourages minion usage in the game.

I mean, look at any encounter table on any adventure and look at the XdX bandits/wolves/goblins/whatever on their tables. There's at least 2 on every table even in low levels where single target monsters are still somewhat viable.

By the way, Lightning Arrow is being extremely underrated. It activates on-attack rather than on-hit but it does a minimum of 3d8 damage on the target and a maximum of 6d8 single target damage which exceeds the same spell slot mileage a Paladin gets with theirs. Its also an AoE which affects creatures around it, further boosting its efficiency if the Ranger is patient.

Hail of Thorns is on-hit which makes it good when you're having bad dice rolls and of the same level slot, it does less damage to its target (additional 3d10 on fail) but it does more damage to the surrounding targets so it makes a very good AoE option for enemy groups of 4 or more since we're talking 24.5 average damage each at a grand total of 122.5 damage off a single spell. Realistically, its more often going to be used at 3 enemies which still gives 98 damage spread.

Everyone underestimates AoEs but strong attacks like Paladins usually aren't enough to one-shot minions anyway and a good AoE lets them set up 1-2 kills in their first round. It also gives other AoE attackers opportunity to unleash their best AoE option and remove a large chunk of the battlefield with more certainty than if you had only plinked a single enemy into AoE death range.

I think the claim is not that "you don't need an AoE", but rather that the AoE *usually* doesn't need to be at-will because you can afford by 11th level to Fireball/Shatter/Synaptic Static/etc enough times to chew through the number of minions that will actually be around in an adventuring day.

[Eldariel]

I mean, this is 11th-level+.

It doesn't take nearly as many creatures as you're assuming to justify an AoE, it only takes 3 for that to be the best action in the round.

And at these levels, if the DM is giving any less than 3 enemies, even with legendary creatures, they're doing something wrong and botching their own encounter anyways. That's why Liches have Zombies, skeletons, etc. That's why Dragons have elementals. That's why Mummy Lords have Mummies. Vampires have Vampire Spawn. Mindflayers have slaves and intellect devourers.

The game encourages minion usage in the game.

I mean, look at any encounter table on any adventure and look at the XdX bandits/wolves/goblins/whatever on their tables. There's at least 2 on every table even in low levels where single target monsters are still somewhat viable.

By the way, Lightning Arrow is being extremely underrated. It activates on-attack rather than on-hit but it does a minimum of 3d8 damage on the target and a maximum of 6d8 single target damage which exceeds the same spell slot mileage a Paladin gets with theirs. Its also an AoE which affects creatures around it, further boosting its efficiency if the Ranger is patient.

Hail of Thorns is on-hit which makes it good when you're having bad dice rolls and of the same level slot, it does less damage to its target (additional 3d10 on fail) but it does more damage to the surrounding targets so it makes a very good AoE option for enemy groups of 4 or more since we're talking 24.5 average damage each at a grand total of 122.5 damage off a single spell. Realistically, its more often going to be used at 3 enemies which still gives 98 damage spread.

Everyone underestimates AoEs but strong attacks like Paladins usually aren't enough to one-shot minions anyway and a good AoE lets them set up 1-2 kills in their first round. It also gives other AoE attackers opportunity to unleash their best AoE option and remove a large chunk of the battlefield with more certainty than if you had only plinked a single enemy into AoE death range.

I don't underestimate AOEs, I just find it stupid that a tier 3 subclass specific only real martial AOE in the game still loses out to a tier 2 Wizard/Sorc (& various subclasses) AOE. Like casters being better is fine but casters being so much better that an ability coming an entire tier later with maximal investment is still inferior? Eh, I dunno about that.

As for Lightning Arrow, it's fine but like, it's class specific Tier 3 ability. It's also Concentration. It costs you two actions. You probably only have 16 Wis at best so the save DC is subpar (DC15 on 11 instead of DC17 on generic Wizard). And for all that, it's still not as good as Fireball. Like, cast it in AOE including just a ****load of some generic Tier 3 meatbag, say Redcaps (AC 13, 45 HP, no special resistances) on level 11.



L11 Lightning Arrow Hunter with SS/Arch + Longbow
L11 Wizard


Primary target
6d8 & save ½ vs. +1 Dex (avg. 22,275) + 19,5 at +6 vs. AC13 (13,875) = 36,15 [average 2 hits to drop]
8d6 vs. +1 Dex (avg. 24,5) [average 2 hits to drop]


Other targets
2d8 & save ½ vs. +1 Dex (avg. 7,425) + 19,5 at +6 vs. AC13 (13,875) = 21,3 [average 3 hits to drop]
8d6 vs. +1 Dex (avg. 24,5) [average 2 hits to drop]


Resources expended
1/3 level 3+ slots = 33,3% of slots plus Concentration
1/11 level 3+ slots [2 from Arcane Recovery] = 9,1% [6 of which are more powerful]


Radius
10'
20' (spreads around corners)


Range
600'
150



Number of targets needed for Wizard to come out ahead:
24,5x > 21,3(x-1)+36,15
24,5x - 21,3x > 36,15 - 21,3
3,2x > 14,85 || :3,2
x > 4,640625

So if you're hitting 5+ targets with both, Fireball comes out ahead. Or if there's a single target you can hit with Fireball but not Volley + Lightning Arrow (by going around corners or by having twice bigger AOE) we unsurprisingly end up with:
24,5x > 21,3(x-2)+36,15
24,5x - 21,3x > 36,15 - 42,6
3,2x > -11,45 || :3,2
x > -3,578125

Or with the Fireball user coming out ahead for any number of targets (which is, of course, trivial: 24,5*2 = 49 > 36,15). In other words, Lightning Arrow could afford to be a lot better given it comes on level 9 whereas Fireball comes on level 5 and LA is completely exclusive to Ranger (outside Lore Bards). The only advantage LA has is range, which is nice but again mostly relevant in an army situation (in a normal adventuring situation, extreme ranges require unusual terrain).

If Lightning Arrow didn't require Concentration (which is pretty big given Ranger list has spells like Conjure Animals, Spike Growth, Pass without Trace, Hunter's Mark, etc.) and if it did a bit more damage in the AOE, it'd be pretty good but as it stands, it just leaves a lot to be desired (it felt like the designers were overcautious in designing it in spite of all its limitations). I rarely find it worth one of your few level 3 slots and last Ranger I played didn't even bother learning it [since your spells known are pretty sparse and 2d8 is sorry for an AOE].

[Asisreo1]

I don't underestimate AOEs, I just find it stupid that a tier 3 subclass specific only real martial AOE in the game still loses out to a tier 2 Wizard/Sorc (& various subclasses) AOE. Like casters being better is fine but casters being so much better that an ability coming an entire tier later with maximal investment is still inferior? Eh, I dunno about that.

If Lightning Arrow didn't require Concentration (which is pretty big given Ranger list has spells like Conjure Animals, Spike Growth, Pass without Trace, Hunter's Mark, etc.) and if it did a bit more damage in the AOE, it'd be pretty good but as it stands, it just leaves a lot to be desired (it felt like the designers were overcautious in designing it in spite of all its limitations). I rarely find it worth one of your few level 3 slots and last Ranger I played didn't even bother learning it [since your spells known are pretty sparse and 2d8 is sorry for an AOE].
You're comparing apples to oranges.

You need to understand that you are not a wizard or other full caster. You are a martial. You have always specialized in single target damage more than the Wizards who have their single target spells much more expensive and much less worthwhile than their AoE's except AoE's aren't great unless in a area with large numbers of enemies anyways.

But the one martial that attempts to placate that desire to have AoE's are shut down because it doesn't compare to the class whose AoE's rely on their ability to do anything outstanding or useful in a group, making it a greater cost anyways.

Hunter Rangers can contribute to AoE strategies much better than other martials can, by a mile but they are also nearly equally competent when its reversed and the party needs to focus down a single target. The game usually devolves into AoE the minions then focus down the boss and the Ranger can contribute to both of those goals.

Fireball alone isn't enough to wipe out tier 3 minions. These are like Berserkers, Knights, Priests, Ghasts, Mummies. These creatures aren't going down in a single fireball but a fireball and lightning arrow might do the trick. But now the BBEG that's left over can be focused on and the Ranger can Hunter's Mark them and do their decent damage.


Also, Lightning Arrow is a bonus action.

[Eldariel]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

But my whole point is that I shouldn't be. AOE is AOE and it's okay for a single martial class in the game to be good enough at it to not be an entire tier behind non-specialised casters with a feat and a fighting style invested. Specialised casters are another matter, of course; they'll trivially outperform both and it's okay for a caster specialised in AOE booms to be the best at AOE booms but right now a specialised AOE martial is far behind a non-specialised AOE caster. Generalist Tier 2 caster vs. specialist Tier 3 martial is too much of a gap; there's no need for it. It'd be totally okay for warriors in general to be better at the damage game - why, they're still behind in literally everything else. But as it stands, they can't have even that. The game wouldn't break even if warriors beat casters on all damage metrics (as it happens, casters ultimately have higher DPR if we build actual DPR casters, be it single target or AOE but that's neither here nor there).

If warriors had decent AOE options too (say, Volley at Tier 2 and some damage rider on Tier 3 and Super Volley eventually to hit like everyone within 100' radius circle on Tier 4) we'd be talking but right now we're talking about a cat's fart in the AOE game on Tier 3 and nothing before then and oh, did I forget to mention, this is still only available to a single, weakish subclass! So practically speaking it might as well not exist since Hunter is still not remotely comparable to Gloomstalker or Horizon Walker or whatever. This is, incidentally, one of the reasons for Rangers in general being a bit lackluster: the options they get just don't measure up.


Really, the big issue with Tier 3-4 martials is:
- They are decent at one thing (generally either taking hits or single target damage).
- Suddenly their whole power budget is apparently taken by being decent at a single thing so they get jack all for everything else!

But that's kinda inevitable since the way the game is written, casters get ~5-20 decent-strong options every 2 levels while warriors generally get 1 weak-strong option every level. A level 20 warrior generally has 20ish abilities. A level 20 caster has...depends on the class, but easily 50+ (of course, most classes can only prepare 25 but then there's all-day abilities and ritual casting and actual class features and all that nonsense).

So obviously level 20 martials are only good at one-two things since they literally have ~1/3rd of the class features. It's hard to fit comparable amount of power to a third of the class features as casters get... And obviously WotC was supercareful with warriors to not make them "overpowered" too. Because apparently casters not being the best in any every area would be terrible.


Also, Lightning Arrow is a bonus action.

Bonus action that does nothing before you take an action. For all intents and purposes it's a bonus action + action, or two actions (and drops your Concentration while at it).

EDIT: Funny point, Mummy specifically actually is somewhat likely to be one-shot by Fireball. They're Vulnerable to Fire so the spell averages 56/28 damage and their Reflex-saves are -1. That's 46% for enough damage to one-shot them with a single level 3 Fireball and them failing their saves (which they're like 85% to do) so a total of 40% to one-shot any given Mummy caught in the AOE (due to how the math works it's actually mostly down to the damage roll) or 70%ish with a level 4 Fireball.

[Dsoec485]

Watching these threads get into the weeds is always interesting. Personally, I don't like the modern obsession with "balance." This obsession ruins games. Do people seriously expect a steel stick swinger in this world to be on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane? I think if you do you are setting poor expectations for yourself. This is why I personally like D&D vs say a video game based on a similar concept. Since the video game creators are obsessed with "balance" it takes so much away form characters that would and should be substantially more powerful in the fantasy setting then other characters.

I wouldn't go as far as to say its perfect obviously. And there probably is something that could be done, but people seem to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to "balance" and I think that is the core of the problem. I have not doubt this will most likely not be a popular opinion, but I also come from a background of playing wargames where scenarios can be as unbalanced as 15/85 to one side at the start so I am not as sympathetic as others might be.

Yes, we want everyone to have fun and there have been some interesting solutions presented here. But at the end of the day everyone needs understand their expectations and limitations too.

[Eldariel]

Watching these threads get into the weeds is always interesting. Personally, I don't like the modern obsession with "balance." This obsession ruins games. Do people seriously expect a steel stick swinger in this world to be on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane? I think if you do you are setting poor expectations for yourself. This is why I personally like D&D vs say a video game based on a similar concept. Since the video game creators are obsessed with "balance" it takes so much away form characters that would and should be substantially more powerful in the fantasy setting then other characters.

I wouldn't go as far as to say its perfect obviously. And there probably is something that could be done, but people seem to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to "balance" and I think that is the core of the problem. I have not doubt this will most likely not be a popular opinion, but I also come from a background of playing wargames where scenarios can be as unbalanced as 15/85 to one side at the start so I am not as sympathetic as others might be.

Yes, we want everyone to have fun and there have been some interesting solutions presented here. But at the end of the day everyone needs understand their expectations and limitations too.

The big difference is, this isn't a wargame. This is broadly a cooperative storytelling game. There's little to be gained by handicapped one side over the other. Obviously a caster has higher fantasy power ceiling but said power also has rules written by game designers so it's only as strong as the game designers let it be. This game is also level-based where level is supposed to showcase a character's level and characters of the same level are supposed to be largely similar in terms of overall power (note, overall power being similar doesn't mean the characters are identical or samey; they can have power in totally different fields meaning they actually contribute very differently in spite of having the same power budget). This is apparent as classes gain experience for overcoming the same challenges based on their level and level up at the same rate; so a level X Fighter and a level Y Wizard are supposed to be broadly similar. It just so happens that's really not the case. If we wanted to present what you describe, it could be done via level differences; casters having higher level ceiling or such. But there's little point in standardised leveling if level itself means nothing.

In short, this thinking doesn't really work for a game like this. There's no point in having difference in class power and it's actually completely contrary to the point of the level system and Tier system.

There's also the fantasy part; in classical stories, magic exists but it doesn't actually dominate and when you wanna fight you will turn to swords since magic is impractical far as combat is concerned. Your average witch or wizard is no warrior (or if they are, they fight with weapons); they're movers and planners but their powers are for affecting fate or some such, not for blowing somebody's head off. In fights they might turn to creatures or some such to bolster their ability but that's generally nothing a sword can't solve.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Do more than one encounter per long rest that requires resource expenditure combined with a time table.

Target the spell caster more.

You do those things and your Caster / Martial problems will disappear.

[Jakinbandw]

Do people seriously expect a steel stick swinger in this world to be on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane?

[Blue text] I dunno, do we expect a school kid or an old weak professor to be as useful on a battlefield as a lifelong soldier? If anything it would make more sense for mages to have disadvantage on all checks in dangerous situations. [/Blue text]

DND is a fantasy, and as such doesn't need to adhere to the issues inherent in reality. Having a bunch of character archtypes that aren't enjoyable to play makes it so that enjoy that archtype can't enjoy the game. Having another archtype be better than yours are everything isn't fun for most people, thus balance is important.

As for my suggestion? Make full casters into half casters, make half casters into 1/3 casters, and make 1/3 casters into 1/4 casters. Do this for spells known, while keeping total number of spell slots the same. No more issues with wish, or simulacrum because it's outside the scope of the game now.

[Xervous]

Do more than one encounter per long rest that requires resource expenditure combined with a time table.

Target the spell caster more.

You do those things and your Caster / Martial problems will disappear.

Sweeping the legs out from under casters to point out that only the Martials are still standing doesn’t really address anything in the structure, it just sets the GM as the caster’s adversary and the martial’s mama bird. A GM can of course coerce all characters into desired performance ranges by degrees of fiat, but people picking D&D presumably aren’t looking for Calvinball. Answer where Martials are coming up short mechanically and you’ve got a path towards fixes. And yes, it’s at the relevance of concept part of the design phase.

[Willie the Duck]

Watching these threads get into the weeds is always interesting. Personally, I don't like the modern obsession with "balance." This obsession ruins games. Do people seriously expect a steel stick swinger in this world to be on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane? I think if you do you are setting poor expectations for yourself. This is why I personally like D&D vs say a video game based on a similar concept. Since the video game creators are obsessed with "balance" it takes so much away form characters that would and should be substantially more powerful in the fantasy setting then other characters.

I wouldn't go as far as to say its perfect obviously. And there probably is something that could be done, but people seem to have unrealistic expectations when it comes to "balance" and I think that is the core of the problem. I have not doubt this will most likely not be a popular opinion, but I also come from a background of playing wargames where scenarios can be as unbalanced as 15/85 to one side at the start so I am not as sympathetic as others might be.

Yes, we want everyone to have fun and there have been some interesting solutions presented here. But at the end of the day everyone needs understand their expectations and limitations too.

It's perfectly reasonable to point out that Boromir and Gandalf (or Angel Summoner and BMX Kid, to really drive the message home) aren't really pulling the same weight in a party and perhaps that's reasonable for the fiction given. However, Boromir and Gandalf aren't being played by players at a game table, hoping to contribute relatively equally to the unfolding of a night's entertainment. Likewise, Angel Summoner and BMX Kid aren't the same Level, don't have the same Experience Point total, do not contribute to the party net/average level equally for purposes of determining supposed challenge of encounter by comparison to opponent CR, or for that matter be labelled as existing within the same Tier. I don't have a quote handy where the game actually says it, but all of the little metrics that the game includes suggests that martials and casters are, or at least are supposed to be, roughly equal in capability when they are the same level.

Perfect balance is something of an impossible goal, especially when people disagree on what the norm is for encounters per day, but there is nothing wrong with the attempt (or at least wish that the system was slightly better at it, etc.).

[Ettina]

This all seems like specific DM problems rather than game problems anyway? You're making an assumption about how DMs will rule, when there's no real reason to assume even most would rule that way (one of my groups is currently persuading various kings to build an army and have been for months now...).

Plus, that's likely one of the intended ways to use Persuasion at higher levels, according to WOTC. For example, in Out of the Abyss, in the latter half of the campaign, the PCs are supposed to tell a bunch of NPCs about the demon lords and convince them to send armies into the Underdark.

[Asisreo1]

Sweeping the legs out from under casters to point out that only the Martials are still standing doesn’t really address anything in the structure, it just sets the GM as the caster’s adversary and the martial’s mama bird. A GM can of course coerce all characters into desired performance ranges by degrees of fiat, but people picking D&D presumably aren’t looking for Calvinball. Answer where Martials are coming up short mechanically and you’ve got a path towards fixes. And yes, it’s at the relevance of concept part of the design phase.
Its as simple as targetting each player equally.

I suspect that its the DMs treating their casters like they're their mama bird. If all characters take an equal amount of attacks with equal amounts of damage every turn, the casters are the first to drop. There's no debate about that.

But think back about your time being a wizard. How often did the DM hit you rather than the Paladin or Barbarian? What do you think you might have had to do during those turns?

The DM knows it takes only 2-3 good hits on a caster to completely debilitate them and some DMs are afraid that the caster will feel targeted if they're always the ones going down. But that's just how HP and AC works. An enemy that attacks at random, or worse, targetting the ones that look less durable, will be more dangerous to spellcasters because they're not built to sustain prolonged targetting.

Take the wizard. At lower levels, a 5th level wizard can only take 4 rounds of focus before their shield spell starts wastefully encroaching on their higher level spells which they have significantly less of. This isn't alot of buffer and it only gets their AC to about 18 which is less than the majority of martials including over 20 for paladins/fighters and roughly 19 or so for the other options save for Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue which have better mitigation anyways.

At upper levels, let say 20, AC starts to matter less and less as enemies will still have over 50% chance to hit you even with AC over 23 or even 25. What matter more is HP and the HP of wizards have deviated greatly from those of Barbarians and Fighters usually because they can't have both good AC and good HP without dropping the ASI ball on one of them while the martials get either 2 for the price of one like Barbarians or their high attack score also gives them access to higher armors like 15 STR or high DEX.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Sweeping the legs out from under casters to point out that only the Martials are still standing doesn’t really address anything in the structure, it just sets the GM as the caster’s adversary and the martial’s mama bird. A GM can of course coerce all characters into desired performance ranges by degrees of fiat, but people picking D&D presumably aren’t looking for Calvinball. Answer where Martials are coming up short mechanically and you’ve got a path towards fixes. And yes, it’s at the relevance of concept part of the design phase.

Look, I get what you are saying. And I think there are things that could have been done in the design phase that fix a couple of these issues. I will concede that there are some design decisions that could have been massaged into something stronger.

But I've been running 5e from the start of the edition. And frankly, the caster's have won a couple of encounters in my games. But the martial characters are the guys that won the campaign. Even into the upper levels.

In all honesty, when people purport to run into this issue, I have a feeling they aren't leveraging the system of 5e to their advantage. And further, have some inherent bias that further exasperates the issue of "Martial Character's Vs. Caster Characters". It sounds awful to say, but most Dungeon Master's are mediocre when commanding a system to their advantage. They might be able to act, construct cool plots, have awesome hand-outs, use backstories, and such. But when it comes time to command a system, over a long period of time, most people are not great at it. And in that mediocrity, caster's will shine a lot more than when you leverage the power of martial characters.

And it's exactly that - Sweep the leg of the caster's out from under them. Because, that means they need to get good. They don't get to stand around for free not taking arrow shots. The martial characters don't get to not defend the back line anymore. You better be watching your spell selection. Because the bad guys are coming for that sweet wizard booty and if you don't have shield, or mirror image, you are going to die.

[Xervous]

As ever you miss the point. Depriving a caster of all their resources does not empower a martial to achieve anything in noncombat scenarios. Drain the caster of their resources and, absent tools served up by a knowledgeable GM, the martial won’t be able to step up to meaningfully engage quite as many T3-4 scenarios as their definition prohibits them from engaging with that scope of things .

[Dsoec485]

[Blue text] I dunno, do we expect a school kid or an old weak professor to be as useful on a battlefield as a lifelong soldier? If anything it would make more sense for mages to have disadvantage on all checks in dangerous situations. [/Blue text]

DND is a fantasy, and as such doesn't need to adhere to the issues inherent in reality. Having a bunch of character archtypes that aren't enjoyable to play makes it so that enjoy that archtype can't enjoy the game. Having another archtype be better than yours are everything isn't fun for most people, thus balance is important.

As for my suggestion? Make full casters into half casters, make half casters into 1/3 casters, and make 1/3 casters into 1/4 casters. Do this for spells known, while keeping total number of spell slots the same. No more issues with wish, or simulacrum because it's outside the scope of the game now.


As to your point about D&D being fantasy that is exactly my point, why is there an expectation of fairness or balance at all if that's the argument being made? Or should we expect perfect balance because it is a fantasy? Again this is totally subjective. The level of fairness or balance is created completely arbitrarily by the game designer to make the game fit their idea of how the world should work. And thus it can in turn be changed completely arbitrarily by the DM.

Weather a class is or is not fun within their limitations is again totally subjective. I wouldn't have fun playing a full martial even if it was the "best" character in the game bar none. I also play with people who couldn't care less what there DPR is or their AC compared to someone else or wouldn't' touch a full caster with a 10 foot pole and we all have a blast for different reasons.

There are also other things to consider as well: is the caster optimizing and taking every chance to blow the doors off an encounter? Are the materials newer players whos characters are not as good due to inexperience? You could make a list a mile long for every conceivable scenario. Maybe the caster needs to have some self restraint for the sake of fun / party dynamics. Which is why my post was more focused on the philosophy of the game rather than a direct practical application to change the rules.

I outright said its not perfect and changes could be made to improve it. I didn't say there should be no balance or no improvements. I was pointing out that some peoples expectations are never going to be fulfilled in a game like D&D. If you want to make changes so substantial they completely change the game that is your prerogative if you are the DM.

Edit before posting: I see someone said some level of equality was stated as the intention by the designers. And I have no issues believing that is the case. I will say again I do believe there can be improvements. I just want to temper expectations and also acknowledge the role of table dynamics.

I am the most powerful character at my table and I could blow the doors off almost every encounter. I could have chosen a better weapon and instead of the one I asked for for flavor etc. But I didn't and I don't. Why? Because I understand my affect on the other players and I also like to role play. Balance can be sought in more ways that just rule changes.

[BoutsofInsanity]

As ever you miss the point. Depriving a caster of all their resources does not empower a martial to achieve anything in noncombat scenarios. Drain the caster of their resources and, absent tools served up by a knowledgeable GM, the martial won’t be able to step up to meaningfully engage quite as many T3-4 scenarios as their definition prohibits them from engaging with that scope of things .

Can you elaborate what you mean by that?

[Eldariel]

Its as simple as targetting each player equally.

I suspect that its the DMs treating their casters like they're their mama bird. If all characters take an equal amount of attacks with equal amounts of damage every turn, the casters are the first to drop. There's no debate about that.

But think back about your time being a wizard. How often did the DM hit you rather than the Paladin or Barbarian? What do you think you might have had to do during those turns?

The DM knows it takes only 2-3 good hits on a caster to completely debilitate them and some DMs are afraid that the caster will feel targeted if they're always the ones going down. But that's just how HP and AC works. An enemy that attacks at random, or worse, targetting the ones that look less durable, will be more dangerous to spellcasters because they're not built to sustain prolonged targetting.

Take the wizard. At lower levels, a 5th level wizard can only take 4 rounds of focus before their shield spell starts wastefully encroaching on their higher level spells which they have significantly less of. This isn't alot of buffer and it only gets their AC to about 18 which is less than the majority of martials including over 20 for paladins/fighters and roughly 19 or so for the other options save for Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue which have better mitigation anyways.

At upper levels, let say 20, AC starts to matter less and less as enemies will still have over 50% chance to hit you even with AC over 23 or even 25. What matter more is HP and the HP of wizards have deviated greatly from those of Barbarians and Fighters usually because they can't have both good AC and good HP without dropping the ASI ball on one of them while the martials get either 2 for the price of one like Barbarians or their high attack score also gives them access to higher armors like 15 STR or high DEX.

HP matters but HP of Wizards is ~70% of that of the Fighters. At most one more attack. It isn't enough for a meaningful division. Abjurer has same or more EHP as an equivalent Fighter and any Wizard can cast max level False Life once to totally destroy the difference. This isn't at all a weakness of the casters. On the contrary; if you want, your casters are going to be way harder to kill than any Fighter short of Eldritch Knight (who is, surprise surprise, a caster). Because Shield and Absorb Elements are bonkers spells and because there's nothing stopping casters from wearing shields and armor if they get the proficiency (from race, feats, subclass, dip, anywhere).

FWIW if you know what you're doing, you don't even need to do that much. People who say it matters if the DM guns for the Wizards probably have little experience actually playing the Wizard in such a situation. When I was playing my first Wizard in the edition, I was focused to the exclusion of everyone else specifically because I was a Wizard. I didn't have armor or any such. I just had Mage Armor, 14 Dex and Shield-spell (I'd have 16 on pb but that was a rolled character so I didn't have the option). What I also had: Alert-feat, CC spells and the magical ability to drop prone behind my frontline.

The reason competently played casters are unlikely to suffer from DM focusing them? They can use positioning against melee enemies forcing them to provoke lots of AoOs to perhaps draw a Misty Step or whatever. Ranged enemies? Move and drop prone. Enemies attacking your 16+Shield-spell AC at Disadvantage means basically none will hit. If you are using your positioning correctly and aren't built to be tanky and have tanky teammates, you can avoid melee enemies in vast majority of the circumstances via bodyblocking allies (or minions), OAs, and your own mobility. This is of course in part because you have great scouting abilities starting from the familiar, so you should statistically be less likely to be caught entirely offguard. It'll happen but not often enough to entirely **** you over. And if you get pincered, you can still just CC one part of the fight and then retreat through them from the other half.

Net result: Caster won't die but enemies will spend incredible amount of resources on them.

[BoutsofInsanity]

HP matters but HP of Wizards is ~70% of that of the Fighters. At most one more attack. It isn't enough for a meaningful division. Abjurer has same or more EHP as an equivalent Fighter and any Wizard can cast max level False Life once to totally destroy the difference. This isn't at all a weakness of the casters. On the contrary; if you want, your casters are going to be way harder to kill than any Fighter short of Eldritch Knight (who is, surprise surprise, a caster). Because Shield and Absorb Elements are bonkers spells and because there's nothing stopping casters from wearing shields and armor if they get the proficiency (from race, feats, subclass, dip, anywhere).

FWIW if you know what you're doing, you don't even need to do that much. People who say it matters if the DM guns for the Wizards probably have little experience actually playing the Wizard in such a situation. When I was playing my first Wizard in the edition, I was focused to the exclusion of everyone else specifically because I was a Wizard. I didn't have armor or any such. I just had Mage Armor, 14 Dex and Shield-spell (I'd have 16 on pb but that was a rolled character so I didn't have the option). What I also had: Alert-feat, CC spells and the magical ability to drop prone behind my frontline.

The reason competently played casters are unlikely to suffer from DM focusing them? They can use positioning against melee enemies forcing them to provoke lots of AoOs to perhaps draw a Misty Step or whatever. Ranged enemies? Move and drop prone. Enemies attacking your 16+Shield-spell AC at Disadvantage means basically none will hit. If you are using your positioning correctly and aren't built to be tanky and have tanky teammates, you can avoid melee enemies in vast majority of the circumstances via bodyblocking allies (or minions), OAs, and your own mobility. This is of course in part because you have great scouting abilities starting from the familiar, so you should statistically be less likely to be caught entirely offguard. It'll happen but not often enough to entirely **** you over. And if you get pincered, you can still just CC one part of the fight and then retreat through them from the other half.

Net result: Caster won't die but enemies will spend incredible amount of resources on them.

None of the above is possible, without, as you stated, tanky teammates over long term engagements. I agree with you, that's how caster's need to be played. But without teammates who cover for that weakness, you are in fact burning through resources that are spent on keeping you alive, rather than ending the engagement.

Short Term? I agree 100% with you. Summons, spells, familiars all combine to making it nearly impossible to drop a caster. If we DON'T do more than two encounters per long rest then we have a caster supremacy problem. But, if we stop with "White Room fights", and start using multiple encounters, tactics, groups of monsters that aren't bunched up, terrain, and strategy long term, the martial characters wills suddenly matter a lot more.

[Dsoec485]

It's perfectly reasonable to point out that Boromir and Gandalf (or Angel Summoner and BMX Kid, to really drive the message home) aren't really pulling the same weight in a party and perhaps that's reasonable for the fiction given. However, Boromir and Gandalf aren't being played by players at a game table, hoping to contribute relatively equally to the unfolding of a night's entertainment. Likewise, Angel Summoner and BMX Kid aren't the same Level, don't have the same Experience Point total, do not contribute to the party net/average level equally for purposes of determining supposed challenge of encounter by comparison to opponent CR, or for that matter be labelled as existing within the same Tier. I don't have a quote handy where the game actually says it, but all of the little metrics that the game includes suggests that martials and casters are, or at least are supposed to be, roughly equal in capability when they are the same level.

Perfect balance is something of an impossible goal, especially when people disagree on what the norm is for encounters per day, but there is nothing wrong with the attempt (or at least wish that the system was slightly better at it, etc.).

I agree perfect balance is not possible. And I never said there is something wrong with improvement. If fact I said exactly the opposite and clarified more in my subsequent reply. But if someone's expectation is balance like exists in video games (regardless of weather or not the game designer promised this) then every character will just have a reskin of the same abilities or use slightly different resource pools but they basically all get to the same place. When you give one character the ability to literally change the environment there can not be an expectation that they will be balanced with someone who cannot.

[Dsoec485]

None of the above is possible, without, as you stated, tanky teammates over long term engagements. I agree with you, that's how caster's need to be played. But without teammates who cover for that weakness, you are in fact burning through resources that are spent on keeping you alive, rather than ending the engagement.

Short Term? I agree 100% with you. Summons, spells, familiars all combine to making it nearly impossible to drop a caster. If we DON'T do more than two encounters per long rest then we have a caster supremacy problem. But, if we stop with "White Room fights", and start using multiple encounters, tactics, groups of monsters that aren't bunched up, terrain, and strategy long term, the martial characters wills suddenly matter a lot more.

I really like your approach and think that strategy / tactics adjustments will be for more affective then rule changes. Again for everyone I do think rule improvement is possible. But lets not ignore improvements that can be made in other areas to balance things out as well.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I really like your approach and think that strategy / tactics adjustments will be for more affective then rule changes. Again for everyone I do think rule improvement is possible. But lets not ignore improvements that can be made in other areas to balance things out as well.

Thanks!

There are improvements that could be made for sure. And also rules clarifications / intentions on how things are supposed to function that would go a long way to bringing martial characters in line to the game. Further, in whatever next edition there is, revamping the rest mechanics will matter a lot more as well, OR upping the skill system. There are some things that can go a long way to making martial character more seemlessly fit into the game as it's currently run.

Mainly because Dungeon Mastering in terms of system command takes a lot of work and I think most Dungeon Masters have it as a weakness within their skill set. They might be excellent orators, actors, storytellers, manage their table well, commander's of tone and character. But on system command? I think most are bad at it. I'm the opposite, my voices aren't great, I'm not the best orator. And I wouldn't be fun to watch run a game. But when it comes to story structure, system command, and adaptation I consider myself top tier. Mainly because I do the work.

And that's where the system of 5e flounders. System command is hard. And that directly impacts how martial characters feel. It takes a lot of effort to

Adjudicate high skill rolls
Know when to not call for skill rolls and just let them suceed
Run all enemy abilities
Target a caster like you should, because it doesn't feel good to do
use tactics
Expand the battlemap beyond the whats currently drawn on the table
use terrain and spread your enemies out
Keep combat moving and have multiple encounters a long rest


It's ridiculous. If you aren't doing those things, caster's will be over represented. And that all takes a lot of brain power. Along with voices, acting, getting the next scene ready, being in character for multiple different characters, managing mood, tone and the snacks? GET OUT OF HERE.

That's where the next edition needs to go. Making all of that above? Easier.

[Xervous]

Can you elaborate what you mean by that?

A fighter (chosen as an example, applies generally to most Martials) as a concept will always find a chasm/spooky forest/patrolled corridor with no cover to be an obstacle in absence of tools that enhance the fighter’s mobility. Other classes reach a point where it’s just a piece of scenery, some of them doing this via limited resources. Exhausting those resources does not suddenly make the fighter capable of brushing off these details as scenery. The fighter needs boots of flying / a flying mount / a source of invisibility or a distraction. However you could give any on level character those things and see them enjoy the benefits. It’s not by having Fighter on the character sheet that these feats (grr why did they use that word of all words) are performed.

[Eldariel]

None of the above is possible, without, as you stated, tanky teammates over long term engagements. I agree with you, that's how caster's need to be played. But without teammates who cover for that weakness, you are in fact burning through resources that are spent on keeping you alive, rather than ending the engagement.

Short Term? I agree 100% with you. Summons, spells, familiars all combine to making it nearly impossible to drop a caster. If we DON'T do more than two encounters per long rest then we have a caster supremacy problem. But, if we stop with "White Room fights", and start using multiple encounters, tactics, groups of monsters that aren't bunched up, terrain, and strategy long term, the martial characters wills suddenly matter a lot more.

That's only true for squishy casters. You can play tanky casters too and they can frontline just as well as the next guy. Why would you pick a Fighter instead of a Cleric or a Moon Druid or a Bladesinger or an tanky Abjurer or a Swords/Valor Bard or whatever? Tanky casters largely have better tools to draw attention and keep enemies from the backline and they have means to make themselves even harder to kill as necessary; i.e. they can adjust to the circumstances. As a bonus, Concentration is a beacon for enemies to hit them which means they draw aggro especially well.

Leaving the white room does of course favour the casters. Encounter setup gives casters a lot of tools since they can interact with the environment to make e.g. areas inaccessible to enemies (very useful if there's limited pathways to a destination) and they have the option to cast a Concentration spell and use terrain obstacles to avoid line of effect (if there's e.g. walls or such available) rendering them entirely immune to reprisal. Whether there's 1 or 10 encounters in a day, it doesn't really matter: I'd rather have tanky frontliner casters or disposable frontliners (á la Zombies or Conjured Animals, which can easily last for multiple encounters with their 1 hour duration) than non-casters (i.e. martials) simply because casters bring their impactful resources in addition to decent non-resource contributions as opposed to martials who bring decent/good non-resource contributions but their resources are less impactful.

Simply put, the number of encounters doesn't meaningfully reduce the value of resources. On the contrary, the longer the days the more resources I want and casters bring the most resources on the table.

[Asisreo1]

None of the above is possible, without, as you stated, tanky teammates over long term engagements. I agree with you, that's how caster's need to be played. But without teammates who cover for that weakness, you are in fact burning through resources that are spent on keeping you alive, rather than ending the engagement.

Short Term? I agree 100% with you. Summons, spells, familiars all combine to making it nearly impossible to drop a caster. If we DON'T do more than two encounters per long rest then we have a caster supremacy problem. But, if we stop with "White Room fights", and start using multiple encounters, tactics, groups of monsters that aren't bunched up, terrain, and strategy long term, the martial characters wills suddenly matter a lot more.
Exactly my point.

I wasn't saying that Wizards were completely defenseless but the resources needed to bridge the gap can be expensive and it really cuts into their ability to do other things.



No amount of False Life is going to cover the nearly double HP fighters have unless you're talking about expending close to your 9th level slot and getting lucky rolls.

Wizards excel in their versatility but its always at a much steeper cost than almost any other character as they have, bar none, the worst at-will attacks in the game. Everything meaningful they do takes up something precious. Their ability to contribute out-of-combat is often stunted by how much they also should be contributing in-combat. As having a toolbox character is great until they just get in the way.

WoTC figured out how to make Wizards the toolbox without them needing babysitting but they aren't some ungodly class with the power to destroy the DM's world without permission. Granted, a DM that allows them to mess with their world can let them do that, but DM Fiat has always been DM fiat.

[BoutsofInsanity]

That's only true for squishy casters. You can play tanky casters too and they can frontline just as well as the next guy. Why would you pick a Fighter instead of a Cleric or a Moon Druid or a Bladesinger or an tanky Abjurer or a Swords/Valor Bard or whatever? Tanky casters largely have better tools to draw attention and keep enemies from the backline and they have means to make themselves even harder to kill as necessary; i.e. they can adjust to the circumstances. As a bonus, Concentration is a beacon for enemies to hit them which means they draw aggro especially well.

Leaving the white room does of course favour the casters. Encounter setup gives casters a lot of tools since they can interact with the environment to make e.g. areas inaccessible to enemies (very useful if there's limited pathways to a destination) and they have the option to cast a Concentration spell and use terrain obstacles to avoid line of effect (if there's e.g. walls or such available) rendering them entirely immune to reprisal. Whether there's 1 or 10 encounters in a day, it doesn't really matter: I'd rather have tanky frontliner casters or disposable frontliners (á la Zombies or Conjured Animals, which can easily last for multiple encounters with their 1 hour duration) than non-casters (i.e. martials) simply because casters bring their impactful resources in addition to decent non-resource contributions as opposed to martials who bring decent/good non-resource contributions but their resources are less impactful.

Simply put, the number of encounters doesn't meaningfully reduce the value of resources. On the contrary, the longer the days the more resources I want and casters bring the most resources on the table.

I wouldn't really call any encounters that occur within one hour of game time to be multiple encounters. That's literally, just one encounter. You might not be in combat the entire time of that hour. But it's still one encounter.

- Multiple encounters are things like -

Clearing an undead presence out of a mine. Where there are vampires who stalk the mining shafts patrolling to prevent long rests. Where it's also big enough that you can't just easily clear it in an in game 1 hr. Or maybe you can, and you go high speed the whole way through. But maybe some of those vampires hide, and attempt to wait you out, so that when you finally think you are safe, they engage once your buffs drop.

Catching a bandit troupe in the woods. You might have several engagements over the course of several days as you go hex by hex tracking them down. But they also know you are on their trail. So they have their stealthy boys ambush you every time you try to sleep. They might have caster's too, so they are going to try and enable their casters the ability to long rest but prevent you from doing so.


Terrain also benefits the enemy. Especially because the enemy is typically engaging in greater numbers than the party. They have more opportunities to flank and to maneuver the back line over the caster. This only holds true if the encounter is actually dangerous. If the enemies aren't scary enough to require all the parties' attention, it doesn't actually matter.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I wouldn't really call any encounters that occur within one hour of game time to be multiple encounters. That's literally, just one encounter. You might not be in combat the entire time of that hour. But it's still one encounter.

- Multiple encounters are things like -

Clearing an undead presence out of a mine. Where there are vampires who stalk the mining shafts patrolling to prevent long rests. Where it's also big enough that you can't just easily clear it in an in game 1 hr. Or maybe you can, and you go high speed the whole way through. But maybe some of those vampires hide, and attempt to wait you out, so that when you finally think you are safe, they engage once your buffs drop.

Catching a bandit troupe in the woods. You might have several engagements over the course of several days as you go hex by hex tracking them down. But they also know you are on their trail. So they have their stealthy boys ambush you every time you try to sleep. They might have caster's too, so they are going to try and enable their casters the ability to long rest but prevent you from doing so.


Terrain also benefits the enemy. Especially because the enemy is typically engaging in greater numbers than the party. They have more opportunities to flank and to maneuver the back line over the caster. This only holds true if the encounter is actually dangerous. If the enemies aren't scary enough to require all the parties' attention, it doesn't actually matter.

Heck, or just archers. I find that creatures with ranged attacks punch way above their nominal damage ratings because they can switch targets pretty easy and a lot of the heaviest-hitting PCs can't reach them. Even CR 3 Archers are scary way longer than they'd be if they were just brutes. And pack a group of Quaddrones (CR 1) into a room with enough room for them to spread out and watch the casters melt. I once ran an encounter (at level 8 or so, but the party was decked out) against a couple CR 5 brutes and 10 quad drones. 40 arrows a round was scary.

[Eldariel]

No amount of False Life is going to cover the nearly double HP fighters

16 Con Fighter vs. 16 Con Wizard isn't really that big. 45% on level 1, 29% on level 20 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?627086-help-me-build-a-great-Tier-2-Twilight-Cleric&p=24938733#post24938733): single False Life from max level will give the Wizard more HP in all cases. 1d4+4 averages 6,5 where Fighter has 4 more and there's 2 points of difference on each level whereas upcast False Life always gets +5 so on level 3, it's 11,5 vs. 6 and on level 5, 16,5 vs. 10, etc. It's actually quite close to what the Fighter has even counting Second Wind. And that's assuming the Wizard's Shield and Absorb Elements literally prevent zero damage over the day.


I wouldn't really call any encounters that occur within one hour of game time to be multiple encounters. That's literally, just one encounter. You might not be in combat the entire time of that hour. But it's still one encounter.

- Multiple encounters are things like -

Clearing an undead presence out of a mine. Where there are vampires who stalk the mining shafts patrolling to prevent long rests. Where it's also big enough that you can't just easily clear it in an in game 1 hr. Or maybe you can, and you go high speed the whole way through. But maybe some of those vampires hide, and attempt to wait you out, so that when you finally think you are safe, they engage once your buffs drop.

Catching a bandit troupe in the woods. You might have several engagements over the course of several days as you go hex by hex tracking them down. But they also know you are on their trail. So they have their stealthy boys ambush you every time you try to sleep. They might have caster's too, so they are going to try and enable their casters the ability to long rest but prevent you from doing so.


Terrain also benefits the enemy. Especially because the enemy is typically engaging in greater numbers than the party. They have more opportunities to flank and to maneuver the back line over the caster. This only holds true if the encounter is actually dangerous. If the enemies aren't scary enough to require all the parties' attention, it doesn't actually matter.

Oh sure, but encounter spacing depends on the scenario. Not every place has incorporeal or burrowing enemies able to harass you at will. Even if they do though, Animate Dead lasts 24 hours so it has no downtime. And Conjure Animals can be cast 3 times on level 6 and there's plenty in the Druid tank even without it; it's just what the Druid has to essentially godmode through a couple of tough encounters.

[Dork_Forge]

I don't underestimate AOEs, I just find it stupid that a tier 3 subclass specific only real martial AOE in the game still loses out to a tier 2 Wizard/Sorc (& various subclasses) AOE. Like casters being better is fine but casters being so much better that an ability coming an entire tier later with maximal investment is still inferior? Eh, I dunno about that.

As for Lightning Arrow, it's fine but like, it's class specific Tier 3 ability. It's also Concentration. It costs you two actions. You probably only have 16 Wis at best so the save DC is subpar (DC15 on 11 instead of DC17 on generic Wizard). And for all that, it's still not as good as Fireball. Like, cast it in AOE including just a ****load of some generic Tier 3 meatbag, say Redcaps (AC 13, 45 HP, no special resistances) on level 11.



L11 Lightning Arrow Hunter with SS/Arch + Longbow
L11 Wizard


Primary target
6d8 & save ½ vs. +1 Dex (avg. 22,275) + 19,5 at +6 vs. AC13 (13,875) = 36,15 [average 2 hits to drop]
8d6 vs. +1 Dex (avg. 24,5) [average 2 hits to drop]


Other targets
2d8 & save ½ vs. +1 Dex (avg. 7,425) + 19,5 at +6 vs. AC13 (13,875) = 21,3 [average 3 hits to drop]
8d6 vs. +1 Dex (avg. 24,5) [average 2 hits to drop]


Resources expended
1/3 level 3+ slots = 33,3% of slots plus Concentration
1/11 level 3+ slots [2 from Arcane Recovery] = 9,1% [6 of which are more powerful]


Radius
10'
20' (spreads around corners)


Range
600'
150



Number of targets needed for Wizard to come out ahead:
24,5x > 21,3(x-1)+36,15
24,5x - 21,3x > 36,15 - 21,3
3,2x > 14,85 || :3,2
x > 4,640625

So if you're hitting 5+ targets with both, Fireball comes out ahead. Or if there's a single target you can hit with Fireball but not Volley + Lightning Arrow (by going around corners or by having twice bigger AOE) we unsurprisingly end up with:
24,5x > 21,3(x-2)+36,15
24,5x - 21,3x > 36,15 - 42,6
3,2x > -11,45 || :3,2
x > -3,578125

Or with the Fireball user coming out ahead for any number of targets (which is, of course, trivial: 24,5*2 = 49 > 36,15). In other words, Lightning Arrow could afford to be a lot better given it comes on level 9 whereas Fireball comes on level 5 and LA is completely exclusive to Ranger (outside Lore Bards). The only advantage LA has is range, which is nice but again mostly relevant in an army situation (in a normal adventuring situation, extreme ranges require unusual terrain).

If Lightning Arrow didn't require Concentration (which is pretty big given Ranger list has spells like Conjure Animals, Spike Growth, Pass without Trace, Hunter's Mark, etc.) and if it did a bit more damage in the AOE, it'd be pretty good but as it stands, it just leaves a lot to be desired (it felt like the designers were overcautious in designing it in spite of all its limitations). I rarely find it worth one of your few level 3 slots and last Ranger I played didn't even bother learning it [since your spells known are pretty sparse and 2d8 is sorry for an AOE].

I may be misreading it, but your Lighning Arrow section looks completely wrong. The primary target is a weapon attack, there is no save for half and you Wus doesn't enter into it. Since it is a weapon attack, you should be adding Archery to the to hit and Dex mod to the damage with the option of adding Sharpshooter +10 to the damage (and since you chose an AC13 creature, yeah you should be adding it).

I may have missed it but didn't see you mention that Fire is one of the worse spell damage types and Fireball a purposeful overtuned spell.


HP matters but HP of Wizards is ~70% of that of the Fighters. At most one more attack. It isn't enough for a meaningful division. Abjurer has same or more EHP as an equivalent Fighter and any Wizard can cast max level False Life once to totally destroy the difference. This isn't at all a weakness of the casters. On the contrary; if you want, your casters are going to be way harder to kill than any Fighter short of Eldritch Knight (who is, surprise surprise, a caster). Because Shield and Absorb Elements are bonkers spells and because there's nothing stopping casters from wearing shields and armor if they get the proficiency (from race, feats, subclass, dip, anywhere).


No, Abjurer's Ward is not the same as a Fighter's HP at all that assumes a Wizard + Subclass +equal Con vs a blank Fighter chassis. When in reality:

There's no reason for the Fighter to have the same Con.

This doesn't account for Second Wind.

This doesn't account for other methods of healing (short rest, potions, healing spells) that capitalise on the higher hp max over the day.

A higher actual hp max also means that you have a higher threshold for insta-death, and more resistant to total hp effects (the ward won't help you against max hp reduction effects, which can very well kill you pretty quickly, or Power Word Kill etc.)

This doesn't account for any subclass relevant abilities (say the temp hp from Fighting Spirit, the Psi Warrior's damage reduction etc.)

False Life: How exactly is any Wizard maximising False Life? Are they burning spell slots until it happens? Hoping they roll max first time? And whilst this can happen and False Life is a spell I'm fond of, I don't think I've ever seen it on the Wizard side of arguments before, so how likely do you think it is you'd actually have a Wizard prepare it (or even learn it) rather than pull out whatever spell is relevant to a discussion? It is bordering on Shrodingers Wizard territory.

[PhoenixPhyre]

False Life: How exactly is any Wizard maximising False Life? Are they burning spell slots until it happens? Hoping they roll max first time? And whilst this can happen and False Life is a spell I'm fond of, I don't think I've ever seen it on the Wizard side of arguments before, so how likely do you think it is you'd actually have a Wizard prepare it (or even learn it) rather than pull out whatever spell is relevant to a discussion? It is bordering on Shrodingers Wizard territory.

As do 99.999% of all caster vs martial "debates" on these forums. They always assume that the caster is built exactly for that one situation and can effortlessly rebuild for any threat on the fly, while the martial is hobbled under silly assumptions.

In real play, I've not run into these issues at all.

[BoutsofInsanity]

As do 99.999% of all caster vs martial "debates" on these forums. They always assume that the caster is built exactly for that one situation and can effortlessly rebuild for any threat on the fly, while the martial is hobbled under silly assumptions.

In real play, I've not run into these issues at all.

See i've ran into the same thing. More often then not the Wizard is scrambling to solve a problem and borderline panicking trying to survive or pull something out their butt for the fight. Like, it's not like if the Fighter get's Force Caged the Wizard isn't freaking out. More often then not, the Wizard is desperately trying to get the fighter out of the bubble so that the fighter can go cause all the necessary problems needed to prevent the Wizard from exploding instantly.

[Xervous]

See i've ran into the same thing. More often then not the Wizard is scrambling to solve a problem and borderline panicking trying to survive or pull something out their butt for the fight. Like, it's not like if the Fighter get's Force Caged the Wizard isn't freaking out. More often then not, the Wizard is desperately trying to get the fighter out of the bubble so that the fighter can go cause all the necessary problems needed to prevent the Wizard from exploding instantly.

Out of curiosity what happens if there’s no wizard and the fighter wins the all expenses paid trip to forcecage seclusion?

[Dork_Forge]

Out of curiosity what happens if there’s no wizard and the fighter wins the all expenses paid trip to forcecage seclusion?

If there is no one to help a PC out of Force Cage and that PC cannot escape on their own, then the party is at a significant disadvantage that can lead to a TPK.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Out of curiosity what happens if there’s no wizard and the fighter wins the all expenses paid trip to forcecage seclusion?

I would hope that in such a scenario, the DM isn't be a buttmuch and just trying to sideline a character. But in that case, party might lose.

To be clear, in any example I'm using, it's under the assumption that the DM is attempting to be fair, and present a challenging but fun story and isn't trying to bring the fun times to a halt.

[Asisreo1]

Out of curiosity what happens if there’s no wizard and the fighter wins the all expenses paid trip to forcecage seclusion?
The other martials do multiple attacks to threaten concentration on the BBEG.

I mean, there are 0 monsters with the innate ability to use Forcecage but lets assume a changed spell list.

Monks can break it if they land a stun. Paladins and Rangers can probably do enough damage to make one hard concentration save. Rogues could too with a sneak attack.

Barbarians and Fighters could either use their features to increase number of attacks or damage output to kill off the spell.

In essence, teamwork.

Edit: Right, wrong spell. I was definitely thinking Wall of Force.

It would be a tight situation indeed.

Although, Forcecage is one of those "Suspicious that this BBEG has it against this party" Type. Like if a BBEG has Antimagic Field and Counterspell suspiciously in his spell list against an all caster team and, oh look, he just so happens to be in a small room with a mob of nonmagical minions at his disposal. Almost like he was countering the group on purpose.

Honestly, it can make sense for a BBEG to want to directly counter high-level adventurers with a trap. But you can't help but feel like things have gotten shifty.

[Eldariel]

No, Abjurer's Ward is not the same as a Fighter's HP at all that assumes a Wizard + Subclass +equal Con vs a blank Fighter chassis. When in reality:

There's no reason for the Fighter to have the same Con.

Fighter has better things to be spending their ASIs on generally. At least I've yet to see a single Fighter build raising their Con with their first 6 ASIs. Fact is, both will probably have the Con they got at character creation, no more, so it's probably 16 each if they're optimising (unless the Fighter is specifically Mountain Dwarf; but of course, e.g. Hobgoblin Wizard is looking at 18 too).

EDIT: Quick listing of what I'd take before going for HP improvements:
+4 primary attack stat
PAM + GWM or SS + XBE or Shield Master + PAM [the fighting style feats]
EA (if available)
Res: Wis [this is 6 already unless we have only 1 fighting style feat as with Longbow or 0 as with Shadow Blade EK]
Lucky
Alert
Crusher/Piercer/etc. is arguable but potentially worth considering


And that's just thinking about core competence, let alone branching out with Ritual Caster or Skill Expert or some such. I seriously doubt Fighters can fit in +2 Con or Tough any time soon.


This doesn't account for Second Wind.

Ward is regenerated each time you cast Shield/Absorb Elements/Counterspell/etc. It adds up to a substantial amount over the day if you're fighting a lot. You can also regenerate it with either out-of-combat Alarms (if you don't need Arcane Recovery and the party is short resting, you can just regenerate 12 Ward HP by ritualising Alarm 6 times) or, if you have Armor of Shadows or Svirfneblin Magic, at will between encounters meaning you'll have more than 1/SR access to it (the more fights, the better).


This doesn't account for other methods of healing (short rest, potions, healing spells) that capitalise on the higher hp max over the day.

Of those exactly only Short Rest actually cares about your HP total.


A higher actual hp max also means that you have a higher threshold for insta-death, and more resistant to total hp effects (the ward won't help you against max hp reduction effects, which can very well kill you pretty quickly, or Power Word Kill etc.)

Cornercases but of course something to keep in mind. I've DMd for an Abjurer 1-10 and so far it's yet to matter.


This doesn't account for any subclass relevant abilities (say the temp hp from Fighting Spirit, the Psi Warrior's damage reduction etc.)

True. But that's kinda whatever; we're talking peanuts by that point.


False Life: How exactly is any Wizard maximising False Life? Are they burning spell slots until it happens? Hoping they roll max first time? And whilst this can happen and False Life is a spell I'm fond of, I don't think I've ever seen it on the Wizard side of arguments before, so how likely do you think it is you'd actually have a Wizard prepare it (or even learn it) rather than pull out whatever spell is relevant to a discussion? It is bordering on Shrodingers Wizard territory.

Max roll is pretty irrelevant; you need a 2 on d4 for level 1 False Life to match what the two levels of Fighter give. It's not a commonly prepared spell, which is precisely my point: an option that Wizards don't even use (like, it's not worth it, their abilities give better stuff), would put any Wizard on equal footing with a Fighter. That's how little people care about the bonus HP options. Though granted, in some cases False Life isn't bad (of course, Armor of Agathys is generally better) but I generally wouldn't bother casting it simply because spells are just that good. But if I was making a Wizard who's pretending to be a Fighter, it's there in case I happened to need some extra HP.

[Dork_Forge]

Fighter has better things to be spending their ASIs on generally. At least I've yet to see a single Fighter build raising their Con with their first 6 ASIs. Fact is, both will probably have the Con they got at character creation, no more, so it's probably 16 each if they're optimising (unless the Fighter is specifically Mountain Dwarf; but of course, e.g. Hobgoblin Wizard is looking at 18 too).

That's a heavily Wizard biased assumption. I've DM'd for quite a few Wizards, none of them have started at Con 16 and I've seen all kinds of classes raise their Con. This doesn't even take into consideration that there's more races that a Fighter would choose that give Con bumps compared to a Wizard (assuming no Tasha's optional moving of stats).

A Fighter doesn't even need to raise Con to get more hp, if they aren't concentrating then they can just take Tough.

Even a Hobgoblin Wizard is only getting the stats you're assuming if they're dumping basically everything else. 3 dumped stats leads to a pretty vulnverable character in a lot of ways with a whole raft of skills they're terrible at.

You have no reason to assume both a Fighter and a Wizard would start with 16 Con, like you can't assume any old Wizard will start with 16 Con either, that's very specific race and stats choices and you can very well optimise without making said choices.


Edit: Just saw your edit so:


EDIT: Quick listing of what I'd take before going for HP improvements:
+4 primary attack stat
PAM + GWM or SS + XBE or Shield Master + PAM [the fighting style feats]
EA (if available)
Res: Wis [this is 6 already unless we have only 1 fighting style feat as with Longbow or 0 as with Shadow Blade EK]
Lucky
Alert
Crusher/Piercer/etc. is arguable but potentially worth considering


And that's just thinking about core competence, let alone branching out with Ritual Caster or Skill Expert or some such. I seriously doubt Fighters can fit in +2 Con or Tough any time soon.

You have a very warped perception of core competency, you don't need any of those feats to be competent at what you do. You don't need any feats at all to be competent. It seems that your view of play is heavily coloured by high end optimisation talk on the boards, Fighers don't need any of that to do well.


Ward is regenerated each time you cast Shield/Absorb Elements/Counterspell/etc. It adds up to a substantial amount over the day if you're fighting a lot. You can also regenerate it with either out-of-combat Alarms (if you don't need Arcane Recovery and the party is short resting, you can just regenerate 12 Ward HP by ritualising Alarm 6 times) or, if you have Armor of Shadows or Svirfneblin Magic, at will between encounters meaning you'll have more than 1/SR access to it (the more fights, the better).

Second Wind is a short rest resource, it adds up over the day. Note that if you're casting False Life, like you proposed (you don't get to talk about different spells and tactics in isolation, it leads to nothing but Schrodingers superior Wizard, which is not the reality). Likewise if you get hit and Shield wouldn't help you or you take a damage type that Absorb Elements doesn't cover, you don't get anything to Counterspell etc.

You certainly can spam rituals and what not, which is entirely gamist and I've yet to see anyone actually take that route (and as a DM I certainly wouldn't let that fly without a good reason).


Of those exactly only Short Rest actually cares about your HP total.

All healing cares about your max hp total. Nobody but the the Wizard (casting Abjuration) can recharge the ward. Anyone, doing a variety of things can restore the Fighters larger pool of hp.


Cornercases but of course something to keep in mind. I've DMd for an Abjurer 1-10 and so far it's yet to matter.

No not cornercases, instadeath is a very real threat for everyone in early game and for the Wizard (and most Sorcerers) the longest. HP reduction also isn't something to be so ignored.


True. But that's kinda whatever; we're talking peanuts by that point.

What? Even at it's base form, Fighting Spirit is 15 temp hp a day, how is that peanuts? The Psi Warrior's reduction isn't peanuts either.

You just seem to be writing off factors that show a more accurate comparison, whilst claiming that the ward regen from Shield etc. is significant.

That doesn't exactly scream fair and open comparison.


Max roll is pretty irrelevant; you need a 2 on d4 for level 1 False Life to match what the two levels of Fighter give. It's not a commonly prepared spell, which is precisely my point: an option that Wizards don't even use (like, it's not worth it, their abilities give better stuff), would put any Wizard on equal footing with a Fighter. That's how little people care about the bonus HP options. Though granted, in some cases False Life isn't bad (of course, Armor of Agathys is generally better) but I generally wouldn't bother casting it simply because spells are just that good. But if I was making a Wizard who's pretending to be a Fighter, it's there in case I happened to need some extra HP.


What? You're the one that said maximised, that's why I questioned it.

Armor of Agathys is a worse souce of temp hp, False Life is a good spell for what it is, though I imagine compensating for the natural short ocmings of a Wizard is a little unglamourous and I suspect a lot of the time that is why it isn't taken.

A Wizard has to heavily invest in basically every single area they can to achieve durability that is part and parcel to a Fighter, that is by design. You using edge cases (Hobgoblin Abjurers with a horrific stat line) gives you a Wizard that is more durable, but doesn't stand up to a Fighter actually investing in their defences or even a Fighter subclass that comes with defensive options.

Instead it's just how great spells are, when you're having to burn spells and slots on just breaking even.

Wizards just aren't durable by design and that's okay, they don't have to be (and shouldn't) be good at everything.

[Eldariel]

What? You're the one that said maximised, that's why I questioned it.

Max as in max level. Level 1 when you can cast level 1 spells, level 2 when you can cast level 2 spells, etc.


Armor of Agathys is a worse souce of temp hp, False Life is a good spell for what it is, though I imagine compensating for the natural short ocmings of a Wizard is a little unglamourous and I suspect a lot of the time that is why it isn't taken.

A Wizard has to heavily invest in basically every single area they can to achieve durability that is part and parcel to a Fighter, that is by design. You using edge cases (Hobgoblin Abjurers with a horrific stat line) gives you a Wizard that is more durable, but doesn't stand up to a Fighter actually investing in their defences or even a Fighter subclass that comes with defensive options.

Instead it's just how great spells are, when you're having to burn spells and slots on just breaking even.

Wizards just aren't durable by design and that's okay, they don't have to be (and shouldn't) be good at everything.

Just repeating that doesn't make it true. Your own post is basically just "I haven't seen it happen, therefore it doesn't happen". Try playing a tanky frontline Wizard (Abjurer since that's where the disagreements seem to occur), preferably in a party with a Fighter, do your best to actually make it work, and see what happens. This kind of theoretical discussion will obviously never convince you but personal experience might.


And Hobgoblin Wizard with 13-14 Dex/17 Con/16 Int going with Moderately Armored and Res: Con is far from horrible. It's actually a really solid build that gets to have superb durability (19 base AC starting on level 4 with access to all the Wizard defensive spells, and Abjurer's Ward as extra HP on top of having 18 Con on level 8). It works with Githyanki, Mountain Dwarf, etc. too (especially now with Tasha's). Basically any race that gets Light Armor Proficiency. Having base 19 AC that in no way affects your capabilities as a caster is pretty sweet and makes Shield all the better (24 AC with Shield means most mooks are critfishing if they're trying to focus you down), and +3-+4 Con is nice for Concentration and HP which combined with Abjurer's Ward makes you just plain hard to damage and then you have Absorb Elements for all elemental damage (Mountain Dwarf with Tasha's reassignments is of course even better with poison resistance and 17 Int and such).

[Dork_Forge]

Max as in max level. Level 1 when you can cast level 1 spells, level 2 when you can cast level 2 spells, etc.

So part of your argument is using your highest level resource to compensate?




Just repeating that doesn't make it true. Your own post is basically just "I haven't seen it happen, therefore it doesn't happen". Try playing a tanky frontline Wizard (Abjurer since that's where the disagreements seem to occur), preferably in a party with a Fighter, do your best to actually make it work, and see what happens. This kind of theoretical discussion will obviously never convince you but personal experience might.

No my post is pointing out that you're pointing to an edge example and not doing the Fighter the justice of giving them what they'd actually have.

I have no desire to play a selfish Abjurer (these discussions usually assume that the level 6 ability is never used), I'd rather play a War Wizard or Bladesinger personally. I have DM'd a Fighter 1/Abjurer 7 with I think either a 14 or 16 Con. He was very very sure of himself and his defenses. The party fled the encounter after he couldn't withstand what was going on (he wasn't the shining pinacle of choices, but he was playing a popular version of what you're suggesting).


And Hobgoblin Wizard with 13-14 Dex/17 Con/16 Int going with Moderately Armored and Res: Con is far from horrible. It's actually a really solid build that gets to have superb durability (19 base AC starting on level 4 with access to all the Wizard defensive spells, and Abjurer's Ward as extra HP on top of having 18 Con on level 8). It works with Githyanki, Mountain Dwarf, etc. too (especially now with Tasha's). Basically any race that gets Light Armor Proficiency. Having base 19 AC that in no way affects your capabilities as a caster is pretty sweet and makes Shield all the better (24 AC with Shield means most mooks are critfishing if they're trying to focus you down), and +3-+4 Con is nice for Concentration and HP which combined with Abjurer's Ward makes you just plain hard to damage and then you have Absorb Elements for all elemental damage (Mountain Dwarf with Tasha's reassignments is of course even better with poison resistance and 17 Int and such).

I never said the build was horrible, I said the statline was, because it is. Ending up with two 8s and a 10 (or three 8s depending on the exact choices) is a terrible statline. I honestly have no idea how doing this doesn't impact casting either, since you'll end up with a 16 Int until 12th level. You're a worse Wizard than a normal Wizard build is because you prepare less spells, they're less effective and your Ward isn't even reaching its potential.

There also seems to be an assumption here that Dex saves (or saves in general) will be elemental? Traps, necrotic etc. there's still plenty of ways to hurt that Wizard. This is a build that makes great sacrifices for durability (yes at the expense of your casting potential) to (in this discussion) compete with an average Fighter.

Your comparisons also seem to skip over the early levels. Earlier upthread you just didn't reply when I asked how a Wizard was even affording to use a Light Crossbow and Find Familiar at first level. Now you're pointing to a build that doesn't get it's lauded AC until 4th level.

So how does your Wizard compare against any old Fighter at 1st level?

Or at 4th?

Let's even do a comparison at 8th shall we. Please correct if my numbers for your propsed Wizard are wrong).

Wizard (Hobgoblin): AC 19 (assuming Half Plate and Shield) HP 66 Ward 19

Fighter (Goliath Samurai 17 12 16 8 13 8, ASIs- Slasher [Str], Tough, +2 Con):
AC 20 (Plate and Shield, Fighter Win) HP 100 (Fighter win) Stone's Endurance 10.5 avg Second Wind 13.5 Temp hp 5

So the Fighter has a higher resting AC and if you add together the Wizards hp and Ward the Fighter comes out ahead by +15hp before you take anything else into consideration. Assuming no short rest and a single use of Fighting Spirit, then the total goes up to +44hp difference. Every short rest the Fighter will come out with Second Wind and Stone's Endurance ready to go as well as max hp (unless for some reason only they run out of hit die). I'm not seeing the Wizard be more durable here, in fact they'll need to burn slots on defensive spells to hit parity.

Oh if it comes up they're also resistant to Cold.

Now I made some defensive choices in that build, but I didn't gimp the Fighter doing so, they still have a +4 Str, Dueling and a feat that feeds into the natural crit fishing of a Samurai. I could push it further, more Con (more hp and more from SE), Defensive Duelist and so on, the Fighter at this point still has plenty of ASIs going forward.

[Eldariel]

I have no desire to play a selfish Abjurer (these discussions usually assume that the level 6 ability is never used), I'd rather play a War Wizard or Bladesinger personally. I have DM'd a Fighter 1/Abjurer 7 with I think either a 14 or 16 Con. He was very very sure of himself and his defenses. The party fled the encounter after he couldn't withstand what was going on (he wasn't the shining pinacle of choices, but he was playing a popular version of what you're suggesting).

Bleh, really? Obviously the level 6 ability is less useful here since this build specifically uses it personally. And this particular story...doesn't really say anything except poorly played build will fail regardless of how good the build. It's totally possible to get yourself or your party killed playing a Totem Warrior Barbarian, even.


I never said the build was horrible, I said the statline was, because it is. Ending up with two 8s and a 10 (or three 8s depending on the exact choices) is a terrible statline. I honestly have no idea how doing this doesn't impact casting either, since you'll end up with a 16 Int until 12th level. You're a worse Wizard than a normal Wizard build is because you prepare less spells, they're less effective and your Ward isn't even reaching its potential.

The difference isn't that big. Yes, you're missing 1-2 HP from the Ward but that's pretty elementary. You still get pretty nice HP and luckily Wizard spells are good enough that you can make do with 16 Int just fine.


There also seems to be an assumption here that Dex saves (or saves in general) will be elemental? Traps, necrotic etc. there's still plenty of ways to hurt that Wizard. This is a build that makes great sacrifices for durability (yes at the expense of your casting potential) to (in this discussion) compete with an average Fighter.

*shrug* How is that different from a Fighter? They don't have Dex save proficiency either and probably won't have more than 14 Dex.


Your comparisons also seem to skip over the early levels. Earlier upthread you just didn't reply when I asked how a Wizard was even affording to use a Light Crossbow and Find Familiar at first level. Now you're pointing to a build that doesn't get it's lauded AC until 4th level.

Uh, you can take like Criminal starting package, sell your Sage's pack and like a Crowbar and get the 36 gold you need for L. Crossbow + Arrows + Familiar. As soon as you literally get any loot that'll cease to be an issue.


So how does your Wizard compare against any old Fighter at 1st level?

*shrug* Depends on how you play it. Certainly much less HP. But it's kinda pointless; you can't really tank on level 1 anyways. Nobody save perhaps raging Barb can afford to plan to take damage on this level: it's way too volatile. Scouting + stealth + strong, reliable alpha strike is the only way to get reasonable survival odds on level 1 - so whether you play a Fighter or a Wizard, you really shouldn't plan on taking hits.


Or at 4th?

Let's even do a comparison at 8th shall we. Please correct if my numbers for your propsed Wizard are wrong).

Wizard (Hobgoblin): AC 19 (assuming Half Plate and Shield) HP 66 Ward 19

Fighter (Goliath Samurai 17 12 16 8 13 8, ASIs- Slasher [Str], Tough, +2 Con):
AC 20 (Plate and Shield, Fighter Win) HP 100 (Fighter win) Stone's Endurance 10.5 avg Second Wind 13.5 Temp hp 5

So the Fighter has a higher resting AC and if you add together the Wizards hp and Ward the Fighter comes out ahead by +15hp before you take anything else into consideration. Assuming no short rest and a single use of Fighting Spirit, then the total goes up to +44hp difference. Every short rest the Fighter will come out with Second Wind and Stone's Endurance ready to go as well as max hp (unless for some reason only they run out of hit die). I'm not seeing the Wizard be more durable here, in fact they'll need to burn slots on defensive spells to hit parity.

Oh if it comes up they're also resistant to Cold.

Now I made some defensive choices in that build, but I didn't gimp the Fighter doing so, they still have a +4 Str, Dueling and a feat that feeds into the natural crit fishing of a Samurai. I could push it further, more Con (more hp and more from SE), Defensive Duelist and so on, the Fighter at this point still has plenty of ASIs going forward.

So Wizard is resistant to Cold, Fire, Lightning, Acid or Thunder. Fighter has resistance to Cold. Wizard has 24 AC when needed. Fighter has 20. So Wizard comes out pretty far ahead on those numbers. Fighter has a bit more HP but will obviously lose it more rapidly since he lacks resistances and AC or any reactions of note. Wizard also has Counterspell which is a rather big survivability bump over not having it vs. casters. And he has Polymorph, of course, if he wants to give anyone 157 temporary HP, which alone gives them more EHP provided than the Fighter.

[JoeJ]

Max as in max level. Level 1 when you can cast level 1 spells, level 2 when you can cast level 2 spells, etc.

Really? Your wizard thinks, "what should I use my only 9th level slot on today? What's most likely to be useful? Wish? True Polymorph? Foresight? Time Stop? Nah, I think I'll go with False Life."

[Dork_Forge]

Bleh, really? Obviously the level 6 ability is less useful here since this build specifically uses it personally. And this particular story...doesn't really say anything except poorly played build will fail regardless of how good the build. It's totally possible to get yourself or your party killed playing a Totem Warrior Barbarian, even.

My point is that most of the time Abjurer is brought up, the level 6 ability is entirely ignored. That's dead weight that other Schools wouldn't really suffer from in optimised builds.

Yes he made poor choices, it also highlights that the defense of a higher AC Abjurer isn't enough without heavy reinforcement and tactical play.


The difference isn't that big. Yes, you're missing 1-2 HP from the Ward but that's pretty elementary. You still get pretty nice HP and luckily Wizard spells are good enough that you can make do with 16 Int just fine.

You're just handwaving any issues. The two hp from the ward are the least of your worries, your whole thing as a Wizard is the large amount of spells you have access to. This build gives you less to prepare (when you have to have Shield, Absorb Elements and Counter Spell prepared as defenses so far by what you've said) and you're limited to buffs and none save based control spells.

No matter how you slice it, a Wizard that gets two feats and leaves their Int at 16 will be a worse off Wizard than the one that maxes their Int. Lower to hit, lower save DC, less spells, lower ward, worse Arcana.


*shrug* How is that different from a Fighter? They don't have Dex save proficiency either and probably won't have more than 14 Dex.

I never said anything about the Fighter, I'm pointing out that Absorb Elements doesn't automatically cover you from save based damage.

That's also a weird generalisation to make, Dex fighters are certainly a thing and very potent.


Uh, you can take like Criminal starting package, sell your Sage's pack and like a Crowbar and get the 36 gold you need for L. Crossbow + Arrows + Familiar. As soon as you literally get any loot that'll cease to be an issue.

So now you're an adventurer that doesn't even have a backpack to carry your supplies in? Or are we meant to ignore the practical side of long distance hiking, camping and dungeoneering? By the way Wizards don't start off with armor either so...


*shrug* Depends on how you play it. Certainly much less HP. But it's kinda pointless; you can't really tank on level 1 anyways. Nobody save perhaps raging Barb can afford to plan to take damage on this level: it's way too volatile. Scouting + stealth + strong, reliable alpha strike is the only way to get reasonable survival odds on level 1 - so whether you play a Fighter or a Wizard, you really shouldn't plan on taking hits.

So it compares like any other Wizard.


So Wizard is resistant to Cold, Fire, Lightning, Acid or Thunder.

No, they don't. They can gain resistance against one of those types by spending a reaction, spell slot and after having already invested a prepared spell. If you don't have any of those things available to you (or choose to not use them in case you need it later on) then you don't have diddly.


Fighter has resistance to Cold. Wizard has 24 AC when needed.

Same as above, having access to Shield is not automatically having an 24AC. If you are hit by something that denies your reaction? If you've already Counterspelled or used Absorb Elements?


So Wizard comes out pretty far ahead on those numbers.

The Wizard can burn resources to compensate, the Wizard's resources are not infinite or even particularly plentiful at this point.

The resistance thing doesn't even 'come out ahead' since resistance just goes towards closing the gap on hp.


Fighter has a bit more HP but will obviously lose it more rapidly since he lacks resistances and AC or any reactions of note. Wizard also has Counterspell which is a rather big survivability bump over not having it vs. casters. And he has Polymorph, of course, if he wants to give anyone 157 temporary HP, which alone gives them more EHP provided than the Fighter.

15hp difference when you account for the Wizard's HP+Ward is a bit? This is before you factor in any actual abilities the Fighter has...

So you chose to ignore the Second Wind, Stone's Endurance and Fighting Spirit numbers I provided and instead brought out more spells to argue your case. The Wizard will get 4 spell levels back on a single short rest, which might keep up with resourcce burning on the defenses... maybe. The Fighter gets quite a bit back on their short rest including their HP advantage.

Counterspell is great... assuming that you're fighting a spellcaster within 60ft of you, whilst you have your reaction (not like you've been relying on reaction spells for the rest of your argument... right?) and a 3rd level or higher slot (neither cheap, nor plentiful).

All of this cost to just up your defenses... And what do you have left to actually do something? You're assuming slots for your defenses so you must be conservative... Your Int is lacking so you neither have the breadth of options or the bonuses to rely on.

Oh yeah, you can become a T Rex! Completely invalidating everything else you've been talking about and making you a dumb animal relying on making Con saves as you wade into battle. Wait, weren't we assuming the Casters were going to be a prevalent threat when you were talking about defenses? So... Dispel Magic and then you're in melee and presumably without Ward or much hp.

You aren't making a convincing argument, nor am I sure why you're so adamant that the Wizard must be able to be more durable than a Fighter (when it's not achieving that against a Fighter that somewhat invests in durability).

[Eldariel]

You aren't making a convincing argument, nor am I sure why you're so adamant that the Wizard must be able to be more durable than a Fighter (when it's not achieving that against a Fighter that somewhat invests in durability).

So...what exactly did we accomplish here? I showed you that a Wizard can be plenty durable for any frontlining duties, you go "but Fighter gets more!", and then I present the option of just turning anyone in the party into a 157 HP frontline in addition to everything you're providing personally and you say that doesn't count. If we can't even agree on Wizards being at least as tanky as Fighters when desired, we're never going anywhere. So...thanks, I'm gonna stop wasting my time.


Really? Your wizard thinks, "what should I use my only 9th level slot on today? What's most likely to be useful? Wish? True Polymorph? Foresight? Time Stop? Nah, I think I'll go with False Life."

Of course not, my point was that you could do that if you really wanted to make up for the HP difference. Honestly, the highest level slot you'd probably ever use is level 5 but that's enough to make up for the difference on the first 11 levels. But the whole point about False Life is that if people rather cast other spells than False Life rather than just getting that bundle of extra HP, then the HP differential is obviously not very important.

[Dork_Forge]

So...what exactly did we accomplish here? I showed you that a Wizard can be plenty durable for any frontlining duties, you go "but Fighter gets more!", and then I present the option of just turning anyone in the party into a 157 HP frontline in addition to everything you're providing personally and you say that doesn't count. If we can't even agree on Wizards being at least as tanky as Fighters when desired, we're never going anywhere. So...thanks, I'm gonna stop wasting my time.

What? This whole disagreement has been becuase I disagree that a Wizard can be as tanky as a Fighter unless it's a very wonky comparison.




Of course not, my point was that you could do that if you really wanted to make up for the HP difference. Honestly, the highest level slot you'd probably ever use is level 5 but that's enough to make up for the difference on the first 11 levels. But the whole point about False Life is that if people rather cast other spells than False Life rather than just getting that bundle of extra HP, then the HP differential is obviously not very important.

An hour of temp hp consuming your highest level resource =/= a higher hp maximum.

[Asisreo1]

Fighter has better things to be spending their ASIs on generally. At least I've yet to see a single Fighter build raising their Con with their first 6 ASIs. Fact is, both will probably have the Con they got at character creation, no more,
I dunno, this is a hard disagree for me.

After you get your primary attack stat, which usually doubles as your primary AC stat, you're likely to grab con because you're experienced at high level play and you realize that low Con makes you susceptible to the myriad ways for a creature to inflict nasty effects like petrification, poisons, and paralysis. But also you want HP.

I guess I should say that having Con saves is a unwritten "reduce significant damage at a certain percent." Poison is still a highly relevant damage type when you're facing enemies and having a resourceless way to consistently succeed on them is extremely useful.

Indomitable is excellent to ensure a bad dice roll doesn't undermine that.

[OldTrees1]

Watching these threads get into the weeds is always interesting. Personally, I don't like the modern obsession with "balance." This obsession ruins games.
I will grant that an obsession with "balance" will ruin games. Direct comparisons (like the AoE math) are not really useful.

However these threads also contain stronger positions to consider. If characters are the same level, they should be able to engage with the same level of encounters. This is why my first post in this thread was asking what the OP envisioned tier 3-4 should be like. For me Tier 3 involved being able to engage in exotic and dangerous environments like an hour long encounter 1 mile in the air. So while I don't care if the DPS is exact, I do care that the characters can engage in those exotic dangerous environments.


Do people seriously expect a steel stick swinger in this world to be on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane? I think if you do you are setting poor expectations for yourself.
Did you know D&D has this nifty little thing called levels? If a steel stick swinger is not on the same level as someone who devoted their life to studying the arcane, what will they become as they level up to get to the same level?

Although that is only talking about general level. So the nitty gritty argument about AoE DPS? Yeah, I am skipping that.

Sure designing for some things is harder and takes more creativity, but you are setting poor expectations for yourself if you have one of the 20th level characters actually only be 5th level (aka your not on the same level expectation).


This is why I personally like D&D vs say a video game based on a similar concept. Since the video game creators are obsessed with "balance" it takes so much away form characters that would and should be substantially more powerful in the fantasy setting then other characters.
Well if they are on different levels, then they would not be on the same level.

However if you are designing a game it is ideal if you can handle each character at each level. Now maybe that means the designer designs Ars Magica so that everyone is a mage. Or maybe the designer figures out what the steel stick swinger has to become before they can be on the same level as someone that has devoted their life to studying the arcane. Or the designer figures out what they want to be a challenge at each tier of play, and then designs each character class to be able to handle the broad and growth threats they would encounter.

So don't obsess about balance, but don't use a "same level" metaphor without realizing that is what levels are there for.

[Eldariel]

I dunno, this is a hard disagree for me.

After you get your primary attack stat, which usually doubles as your primary AC stat, you're likely to grab con because you're experienced at high level play and you realize that low Con makes you susceptible to the myriad ways for a creature to inflict nasty effects like petrification, poisons, and paralysis. But also you want HP.

I guess I should say that having Con saves is a unwritten "reduce significant damage at a certain percent." Poison is still a highly relevant damage type when you're facing enemies and having a resourceless way to consistently succeed on them is extremely useful.

Indomitable is excellent to ensure a bad dice roll doesn't undermine that.

So you'd rather take +1 Con than +4-+5 Wis-saves, which can completely incapacitate you and are poor to start with? You'd rather take +1 Con than 3/day reroll on any saves in Lucky that stacks with Indomitable (and also has utility and offensive uses)? It's not like Con-saves are the only debilitating thing in the game (and a second source of rerolls gives you more likelihood to succeed than +1 Con anyways). Even Shield Master with its +2-+5 Dex saves and ability to ignore Dex-based damage sources is a pretty significant step up.

If this is your logic, you should 100% be maxing Wis, not Con, because the most common and debilitating saves that can make you kill teammates are Wis. Con-based stuff is often stuff that deals damage such as poison, which can be resisted via HP while Wis-based stuff is often in the neighborhood of "save or you're out". And you already have decent Con, but your Wis/Int/Cha/Dex (unless you're a Dex Fighter) are likely to be weaker so what's gonna make you useless to your party is likely not a Con-save but an Int or a Wis or a Cha save.

Sorry but I don't buy this. If you want to maximise your party utility, the worst saves to fail are, pretty much in order, Cha > Wis = Int [Cha is often getting booted to another reality] and the most common of those, by far, is Wis. And those get more common on high levels. If you want to thus shore up your defenses, focus on the defenses that most need shoring up and are most impactful, rather than the one that's already quite good. If one is actually experienced in high level play, they'll know the mental saves are key. Even just fear aura: you simply can't approach a target you fear and ranged attacks are at disadvantage. And the DCs get so high that without proficiency you can't even make them.

[Asisreo1]

So you'd rather take +1 Con than +4-+5 Wis-saves, which can completely incapacitate you and are poor to start with? You'd rather take +1 Con than 3/day reroll on any saves in Lucky that stacks with Indomitable (and also has utility and offensive uses)? It's not like Con-saves are the only debilitating thing in the game (and a second source of rerolls gives you more likelihood to succeed than +1 Con anyways). Even Shield Master with its +2-+5 Dex saves and ability to ignore Dex-based damage sources is a pretty significant step up.

If this is your logic, you should 100% be maxing Wis, not Con, because the most common and debilitating saves that can make you kill teammates are Wis. Con-based stuff is often stuff that deals damage such as poison, which can be resisted via HP while Wis-based stuff is often in the neighborhood of "save or you're out". And you already have decent Con, but your Wis/Int/Cha/Dex (unless you're a Dex Fighter) are likely to be weaker so what's gonna make you useless to your party is likely not a Con-save but an Int or a Wis or a Cha save.

Sorry but I don't buy this. If you want to maximise your party utility, the worst saves to fail are, pretty much in order, Cha > Wis = Int [Cha is often getting booted to another reality] and the most common of those, by far, is Wis. And those get more common on high levels. If you want to thus shore up your defenses, focus on the defenses that most need shoring up and are most impactful, rather than the one that's already quite good. If one is actually experienced in high level play, they'll know the mental saves are key. Even just fear aura: you simply can't approach a target you fear and ranged attacks are at disadvantage. And the DCs get so high that without proficiency you can't even make them.
I value HP and high Con over most other ability scores like Wis and Cha because HP is the defacto way to get killed in the game.

Wisdom effects usually end and give immunity to the effect for 24-hours.

[Eldariel]

I value HP and high Con over most other ability scores like Wis and Cha because HP is the defacto way to get killed in the game.

Wisdom effects usually end and give immunity to the effect for 24-hours.

Which is why you should want to make that save...? I mean, fight an Ancient Dragon and attack at disadvantage without ability to close in. Such a Fighter is useless. Same with someone who gets charmed by a Succubus or Vampire or whatever. At worst, like getting dominated by a Lich or some such, you're actually actively going to be hurting your allies. I would never bring a Fighter (or any class) with +1 Wis saves and no immunities to a Tier 3-4 adventure. Like if I were an adventure group leader I'd just tell them "Sorry, you lack the willpower for this adventure". Because that's the truth. The probability of the Fighter contributing to TPK is too high to risk. Once the DCs get near 20, you need some bonuses even with a bunch of rerolls to have a reasonable chance.

OTOH 0 HP isn't actually that dangerous. It doesn't kill you, it just drops you. You need 3 more hits after dropping to zero to die. In this game it's very cheap to pick up an ally at 0. Even if you houserule in Exhaustion or whatever on yoyoing and keep death saves until long rest or some such, it's still pretty hard to actually die. What causes existential party failure is not getting dropped to zero HP, it's failing saves vs. effects that completely **** half the party over, in the worst case turning characters against the party and summarily executing the sane part.

[Dork_Forge]

Which is why you should want to make that save...? I mean, fight an Ancient Dragon and attack at disadvantage without ability to close in. Such a Fighter is useless. Same with someone who gets charmed by a Succubus or Vampire or whatever. At worst, like getting dominated by a Lich or some such, you're actually actively going to be hurting your allies. I would never bring a Fighter (or any class) with +1 Wis saves and no immunities to a Tier 3-4 adventure. Like if I were an adventure group leader I'd just tell them "Sorry, you lack the willpower for this adventure". Because that's the truth. The probability of the Fighter contributing to TPK is too high to risk. Once the DCs get near 20, you need some bonuses even with a bunch of rerolls to have a reasonable chance.

OTOH 0 HP isn't actually that dangerous. It doesn't kill you, it just drops you. You need 3 more hits after dropping to zero to die. In this game it's very cheap to pick up an ally at 0. Even if you houserule in Exhaustion or whatever on yoyoing and keep death saves until long rest or some such, it's still pretty hard to actually die. What causes existential party failure is not getting dropped to zero HP, it's failing saves vs. effects that completely **** half the party over, in the worst case turning characters against the party and summarily executing the sane part.

I'm currently running a tier 3 game with a character that has only just upped their Wisdom bonus to +1. I get him with Wis saves effects every now and then and it works out fine, it's just having a weakness like most characters have (and makes the game more interesting). At one point they had a pumped vampire as a BBEG, you know who I got with the charm? The Paladin with a +3 Cha and +1 Wis. Big bonuses don't necessarily mean anything and failing an effect doesn't mean you're useless (in your dragon example, if no ones can end the fear then just use ranged weapons, even Str based characters should have a ranged option). Saying that someone that doesn't have a decent Wis save shouldn't go on a tier 3-4 adventure because they'd contribute to a TPK is extreme to say the least.

The hp comment isn't even accurate either, you don't need 3 hits to die when you're down. A hit within 5ft is a crit and thus two failures, then there's actually failing the death saves (which is two failures on 1...). Even then you're not considering the effects at being at 0, you rate failing effects that make you lose turns right? Being at 0hp is an effect that makes you lose turns. The whole yoyo healing thing only works well when the initiative order permits the downed person to not lose turns or die still (if they get hit and fail a save before the healer is up, game over). Then it also depends on who went down, because depending on their max hp and what they're fighting, instadeath could very well be on the cards still depending on how the dice fall (particularly high roll, a crit or both tend to happen at really inopportune times).

Another annecdote because why not, that same party (now level 13 with a bunch of magic items and boons) are fighting a buffed stone golem. They are frequently failing Slow rolls (even though one of them was in the Paladin's +4 aura and had a decent bonus themselves), but that isn't scary to them. What's scary is that the Bard that hands out yoyo heals and temp hp is (as of the end of the last session) at 2hp with the golem still going strong.

[Asisreo1]

Which is why you should want to make that save...? I mean, fight an Ancient Dragon and attack at disadvantage without ability to close in. Such a Fighter is useless. Same with someone who gets charmed by a Succubus or Vampire or whatever. At worst, like getting dominated by a Lich or some such, you're actually actively going to be hurting your allies. I would never bring a Fighter (or any class) with +1 Wis saves and no immunities to a Tier 3-4 adventure. Like if I were an adventure group leader I'd just tell them "Sorry, you lack the willpower for this adventure". Because that's the truth. The probability of the Fighter contributing to TPK is too high to risk. Once the DCs get near 20, you need some bonuses even with a bunch of rerolls to have a reasonable chance.

OTOH 0 HP isn't actually that dangerous. It doesn't kill you, it just drops you. You need 3 more hits after dropping to zero to die. In this game it's very cheap to pick up an ally at 0. Even if you houserule in Exhaustion or whatever on yoyoing and keep death saves until long rest or some such, it's still pretty hard to actually die. What causes existential party failure is not getting dropped to zero HP, it's failing saves vs. effects that completely **** half the party over, in the worst case turning characters against the party and summarily executing the sane part.
I mean, fighters have plenty of ASIs in these higher tiers. You can really max out Con at level 12 and the rest of the ASI's could go into Wisdom or Resilient at these higher tiers.

But also, I fail to see how getting rid of Frightened is harder for a party than getting someone up from 0 HP considering that more classes have ways to mitigate Frightened than they have to bring someone up from 0.

That said, our experiences probably vary greatly because it has never made me feel useless. I have a weakness, like all other characters, and in order to overcome them, they need to have teeth.

That's also the problem with schrodinger's wizard. They have multiple abilities to overcome their extremely large and glaring weaknesses, but they do not have all of them at once, leaving holes in any particular wizard builds that can't be pinned down in any hypotheticals.

Fighters are usually constant. Not as many weaknesses but they usually have the one: low int, cha, or wis saves. Its easy to pick on them because they're more consistent but that doesn't mean that the fighter isn't strong.

[The_Jette]

Which is why you should want to make that save...? I mean, fight an Ancient Dragon and attack at disadvantage without ability to close in. Such a Fighter is useless. Same with someone who gets charmed by a Succubus or Vampire or whatever. At worst, like getting dominated by a Lich or some such, you're actually actively going to be hurting your allies. I would never bring a Fighter (or any class) with +1 Wis saves and no immunities to a Tier 3-4 adventure. Like if I were an adventure group leader I'd just tell them "Sorry, you lack the willpower for this adventure". Because that's the truth. The probability of the Fighter contributing to TPK is too high to risk. Once the DCs get near 20, you need some bonuses even with a bunch of rerolls to have a reasonable chance.

OTOH 0 HP isn't actually that dangerous. It doesn't kill you, it just drops you. You need 3 more hits after dropping to zero to die. In this game it's very cheap to pick up an ally at 0. Even if you houserule in Exhaustion or whatever on yoyoing and keep death saves until long rest or some such, it's still pretty hard to actually die. What causes existential party failure is not getting dropped to zero HP, it's failing saves vs. effects that completely **** half the party over, in the worst case turning characters against the party and summarily executing the sane part.

I think you guys are missing out on the fact that you approach this game from different angles. Eldariel, you seem to be of the opinion that you should focus on ensuring that your character has no weaknesses, or can cover your weaknesses with spells/special abilities. And, the guys you're arguing with seem to be of the opinion that they should focus on what their strong points are, and rely on their teammates to cover for their weaknesses. After all, your wizard doesn't need an amped up AC and hp if the party tank is keeping all the enemies from you, which is what their job is. And, if they fail their wisdom save against the Hold Person spell that the enemy just cast, well either the wizard can use their Dispel Magic to free the fighter, or one of the fighter's allies can damage the enemy into failing their concentration check.

So, Eldariel, you want your character to be able to do anything without relying on anyone else (from what it seems), and the others want to be able to rely on their teammates. That's all there really seems to be to it.

[Eldariel]

I mean, fighters have plenty of ASIs in these higher tiers. You can really max out Con at level 12 and the rest of the ASI's could go into Wisdom or Resilient at these higher tiers.

But also, I fail to see how getting rid of Frightened is harder for a party than getting someone up from 0 HP considering that more classes have ways to mitigate Frightened than they have to bring someone up from 0.

You drop to 0 HP, someone casts (Mass) Healing Word. It's a bonus action and you're now up. Compare that to e.g. frightened: Calm Emotions takes concentration and action. That's far more involved.


That said, our experiences probably vary greatly because it has never made me feel useless. I have a weakness, like all other characters, and in order to overcome them, they need to have teeth.

That's also the problem with schrodinger's wizard. They have multiple abilities to overcome their extremely large and glaring weaknesses, but they do not have all of them at once, leaving holes in any particular wizard builds that can't be pinned down in any hypotheticals.

Fighters are usually constant. Not as many weaknesses but they usually have the one: low int, cha, or wis saves. Its easy to pick on them because they're more consistent but that doesn't mean that the fighter isn't strong.

You should focus on the defenses you need the most. +1 Con is going to save you and your party less often than +3-+4 Wis if you face any high level monsters. So take Res: Wis first. Then Lucky is going to help you out more often than +1 Con (rerolling enemy crits is also a massive HP booster) so you take that first. And you really should take some weapon style feat: otherwise you're just wasting potential. At that point you're already 5 ASIs deep or level 12. Level 16 is when I could see you having a free ASI for +Con where you aren't losing out on something more likely to keep you alive and able to contribute for your party.

It's okay to have weaknesses but if you literally are forcing party to cast spells and use Concentration constantly to keep you active, they'd be better off without you. That's a fact. There's a line to be trodden between being someone allies can pour resources into and being a resource sink allies must pour resources into, hurting their ability to disable the enemy and protect the party.


I think you guys are missing out on the fact that you approach this game from different angles. Eldariel, you seem to be of the opinion that you should focus on ensuring that your character has no weaknesses, or can cover your weaknesses with spells/special abilities. And, the guys you're arguing with seem to be of the opinion that they should focus on what their strong points are, and rely on their teammates to cover for their weaknesses. After all, your wizard doesn't need an amped up AC and hp if the party tank is keeping all the enemies from you, which is what their job is. And, if they fail their wisdom save against the Hold Person spell that the enemy just cast, well either the wizard can use their Dispel Magic to free the fighter, or one of the fighter's allies can damage the enemy into failing their concentration check.

So, Eldariel, you want your character to be able to do anything without relying on anyone else (from what it seems), and the others want to be able to rely on their teammates. That's all there really seems to be to it.

No, this is not at all what I said. I just said that a Wizard can be tanky if he wants. That's all. If you want to take the role of the frontliner with a Wizard, that's more than fine. You can do it. I'd You can also play a squishier Wizard at range and use teammates. I did say that earlier. Both are valid ways to play: people just seem to have this strange misconception that frontline Wizard is somehow less tanky than a frontline Fighter because they lack Second Wind and have d6 HD even though they have a vast array of spells to make up the difference.

[The_Jette]

No, this is not at all what I said. I just said that a Wizard can be tanky if he wants. That's all. If you want to take the role of the frontliner with a Wizard, that's more than fine. You can do it. I'd You can also play a squishier Wizard at range and use teammates. I did say that earlier. Both are valid ways to play: people just seem to have this strange misconception that frontline Wizard is somehow less tanky than a frontline Fighter because they lack Second Wind and have d6 HD even though they have a vast array of spells to make up the difference.

They have been making some valid points. The wizard can have a lot of tankiness for a few rounds a day, more once they reach higher levels. But, if they spend all of their resources being a tank then they don't have those resources for anything else. A 3rd level Fighter has all day AC and damage. A 3rd level Wizard has... 4 1st level spell slots and 2 2nd level spell slots, I believe. And, they can't use any of those spell slots for teleporting, or damaging the enemy, or even buffing the party, because they're saving them in case they get hit. And, since they're upfront, they'll be getting hit a lot more often than they normally would. And, once they run out of spells, they can short rest to get 1 level 1 spell slot back. But, only once. And, then that's it. So, yeah, they can do it. Whether or not they're as effective as a fighter, who can keep it up all day, that's an individual opinion that you guys don't agree on.

[Eldariel]

They have been making some valid points. The wizard can have a lot of tankiness for a few rounds a day, more once they reach higher levels. But, if they spend all of their resources being a tank then they don't have those resources for anything else. A 3rd level Fighter has all day AC and damage. A 3rd level Wizard has... 4 1st level spell slots and 2 2nd level spell slots, I believe. And, they can't use any of those spell slots for teleporting, or damaging the enemy, or even buffing the party, because they're saving them in case they get hit. And, since they're upfront, they'll be getting hit a lot more often than they normally would. And, once they run out of spells, they can short rest to get 1 level 1 spell slot back. But, only once. And, then that's it. So, yeah, they can do it. Whether or not they're as effective as a fighter, who can keep it up all day, that's an individual opinion that you guys don't agree on.

Well, actually arcane recovery rounds up so level 3 Wizard has 6 first level slots (and ritual casting and cantrips, both of which are relevant combat contributions on this level: Unseen Servant can be a great bonus action with ball bearings and oil + create bonfire, while e.g. Minor Illusion and Mold Earth can punch pretty high up the weight class with smart use). Also, a level 3 Wizard doesn't need spells for comparable contribution: Light Crossbow + Familiar Help is actually comparable to what most martials can do at will, often even better (Fighting Style is only +2 for example). Of course, they probably will have those two level 2 slots for combat contribution (Dragon's Breath & Web are both very solid spells on this level as is Sleep) so when casting a spell is likely enough to prevent significant amounts of damage, there's little reason to not do it.

Again, Wizard's at-will is surprisingly good so it's not like you're burning resources left, right and center. You generally don't need that many Shield-spells per encounter for instance: most enemies will miss naturally and some will hit hard enough that it doesn't matter so it's for when you're facing lots of enemies. Which is probably not every encounter.

[The_Jette]

Well, actually arcane recovery rounds up so level 3 Wizard has 6 first level slots (and ritual casting and cantrips, both of which are relevant combat contributions on this level: Unseen Servant can be a great bonus action with ball bearings and oil + create bonfire, while e.g. Minor Illusion and Mold Earth can punch pretty high up the weight class with smart use). Also, a level 3 Wizard doesn't need spells for comparable contribution: Light Crossbow + Familiar Help is actually comparable to what most martials can do at will, often even better (Fighting Style is only +2 for example). Of course, they probably will have those two level 2 slots for combat contribution (Dragon's Breath & Web are both very solid spells on this level as is Sleep) so when casting a spell is likely enough to prevent significant amounts of damage, there's little reason to not do it.

Again, Wizard's at-will is surprisingly good so it's not like you're burning resources left, right and center. You generally don't need that many Shield-spells per encounter for instance: most enemies will miss naturally and some will hit hard enough that it doesn't matter so it's for when you're facing lots of enemies. Which is probably not every encounter.

Again, a "per encounter" argument is only good against low encounter days. If you only have to worry about one encounter, then you can burn through resources and not care. If you have multiple encounters stretched out through the day, you probably can't afford to use more than 1 spell per encounter. So, the guy who doesn't have to worry about spells, has more hit points, and a higher normal AC is just able to keep going longer. That's not even something that I would think would be up for debate at this point. Side note, though, how exactly is your unseen servant helping by creating a single 5' square that the enemy wants to avoid, especially since it takes 2 rounds (first to spread the bearings, 2nd to spread the oil) and then followed up by you using your action to cast create bonfire? If the enemy was in the square when the ball bearings were put there, they can move out. If they weren't, why would they move into it? That just seems like a strange combo to me. Also, since your Wizard is supposed to be front line, why is he using a crossbow? I would think he'd be using a quarterstaff.

[Eldariel]

Again, a "per encounter" argument is only good against low encounter days. If you only have to worry about one encounter, then you can burn through resources and not care. If you have multiple encounters stretched out through the day, you probably can't afford to use more than 1 spell per encounter. So, the guy who doesn't have to worry about spells, has more hit points, and a higher normal AC is just able to keep going longer. That's not even something that I would think would be up for debate at this point. Side note, though, how exactly is your unseen servant helping by creating a single 5' square that the enemy wants to avoid, especially since it takes 2 rounds (first to spread the bearings, 2nd to spread the oil) and then followed up by you using your action to cast create bonfire? If the enemy was in the square when the ball bearings were put there, they can move out. If they weren't, why would they move into it? That just seems like a strange combo to me. Also, since your Wizard is supposed to be front line, why is he using a crossbow? I would think he'd be using a quarterstaff.

Well, Crossbow is the easy answer for Wizard in general. If we have a melee Wizard specifically, Rapier if they have a physical stat or Toll the Dead if they only have casting stat (e.g. Hobgoblin Iron Wizard doesn't really melee since it doesn't invest in Dex or Str which loses out on 1 point of damage per attack and means you'll use Help to Help someone else in the party, such as your Light Crossbow-using ranged Wizard, but that's largely the same total contribution so it's not that important). Either way, for Unseen Servant:
- Depends on the terrain. If there's a choke point for example, you can split enemies.
- If you have a grappler (or are a grappler), Create Bonfire + Oil is actually pretty brutal.

Those are alternatives, not things you combine. They're ways to convert your at-will extra actions into extra effects. But of course, this is something you can't really show in white room - it's great in e.g. dungeon terrain with lots of chokepoints and narrow corridors but obviously less so on featureless plains.

And generally your 8 spell slots will mean you can cast 1 spell per encounter on most days. It's rare enough to have LRs with more than 8 encounters on this level (they will occur, sure, but they'll be an exception not the norm). And when you do, some encounters are likely easy enough that you won't need to burn anything (hopefully your teammates have resources so you can rotate the one who uses a resource on the hard fights).

[Asisreo1]

You drop to 0 HP, someone casts (Mass) Healing Word. It's a bonus action and you're now up. Compare that to e.g. frightened: Calm Emotions takes concentration and action. That's far more involved.

Or they can cast protection from evil and good.

Or Bless

Or they can use their Bardic Inspiration

Or they can be nearby with an Aura

Or they can cast Heroism before the fight.

Plenty of ways to help against a Frightened ally.



You should focus on the defenses you need the most. +1 Con is going to save you and your party less often than +3-+4 Wis if you face any high level monsters. So take Res: Wis first. Then Lucky is going to help you out more often than +1 Con (rerolling enemy crits is also a massive HP booster) so you take that first. And you really should take some weapon style feat: otherwise you're just wasting potential. At that point you're already 5 ASIs deep or level 12. Level 16 is when I could see you having a free ASI for +Con where you aren't losing out on something more likely to keep you alive and able to contribute for your party.

How do you measure that?

Do you look at how much HP and Wis saves you've succeeded and failed or are you assuming that one comes up more often as a necessity than another. Me, as a frontliner, is far scarier when I have extra beef than when I can resist weird effects because most creatures hit you with attacks.

That's why it isn't +1 Con, its +1 to con checks, saves, and +20 HP each time. Its better to get that beefiness early because alot of enemies at lower levels can do enough damage to take you out within 2 rounds if you have low HP but at upper levels, you have more leeway.



It's okay to have weaknesses but if you literally are forcing party to cast spells and use Concentration constantly to keep you active, they'd be better off without you. That's a fact. There's a line to be trodden between being someone allies can pour resources into and being a resource sink allies must pour resources into, hurting their ability to disable the enemy and protect the party.

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I didn't force the DM to target me with a poor save just like the Wizard didn't force the DM to hit them with Constitution Paralysis and knock them out of the fight either. But somebody should help them out if that happens, because of teamwork.

I don't know...I don't feel grumpy at all healing debuffed team members because I know that they do well when they're capable of taking actions. So I don't feel like anybody I heal is a burden, its just an inconvenience.

If you could come up with a way to convince me that every encounter ends up with the fighter debilitated by a Wisdom save, then maybe I'd change my mind. But as far as I can see, fighter's Wis weakness doesn't get any more countered than a Wizard's Charisma weakness or a Bard's Constitution weakness.
[/QUOTE]

[Kylar0990]

As do 99.999% of all caster vs martial "debates" on these forums. They always assume that the caster is built exactly for that one situation and can effortlessly rebuild for any threat on the fly, while the martial is hobbled under silly assumptions.

In real play, I've not run into these issues at all.

That and it's a PvE game not a PvP game so comparing them against each other instead of looking at how each contribute to the group is silly.

Martials do more consistent damage round by round over the course of multiple combats per day which is what they are suppose to do. They are often the front line so casters can cast buff, debuff, healing or damage spells.

[Eldariel]

Or they can cast protection from evil and good.

Single target and doesn't work on i.a. Dragons. Seems much worse: single target, Concentration, etc.


Or Bless

Also Concentration so doesn't seem that useful. Instead of removing the effect you're praying a reroll with a bonus works? There's a chance of course but that's extremely unreliable (imagine you're fighting an Ancient Dragon with DC 21 Fear; even with +1 Wis and +1d4 Bless you're not much better than 17% to end it - after 4 rolls with bless you finally have a 50% chance of making the save so there's a good chance the fight is over one way or another by that time).


Or they can use their Bardic Inspiration

I wouldn't count on it to work, only applies to a single roll and is a random bonus.


Or they can be nearby with an Aura

Pally does help but even with the aura, getting another +4 is huge for your chances especially with built-in rerolls in class.


Or they can cast Heroism before the fight.

Which is, again, worse for these purposes than Calm Emotions. And still takes Concentration.


Plenty of ways to help against a Frightened ally.

Sure, but most of those take a huge investment from allies (action + concentration) and the ones that don't are even more specific. Bardic Inspiration is about the only exception but it's sadly very unreliable if you already have a hard time making the save.


How do you measure that?

Do you look at how much HP and Wis saves you've succeeded and failed or are you assuming that one comes up more often as a necessity than another. Me, as a frontliner, is far scarier when I have extra beef than when I can resist weird effects because most creatures hit you with attacks.

The #1 reason you are out of commission (which can be worse than dying) is not gonna be lacking beef. You have a fairly large amount of HP already. It's much more likely that an effect that bypasses HP, such as a save vs. domination, ends you since you have no answers to it. If party members begin failing saves vs. disabling effects, the downwards spiral in the encounter quickly gets amplified as the creatures have action superiority over the remaining characters who either can try to use their actions to wake up their allies (thus losing their action and letting enemy take free offensive action).

It doesn't matter how much HP you have if you can't do anything.


That's why it isn't +1 Con, its +1 to con checks, saves, and +20 HP each time. Its better to get that beefiness early because alot of enemies at lower levels can do enough damage to take you out within 2 rounds if you have low HP but at upper levels, you have more leeway.

I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I didn't force the DM to target me with a poor save just like the Wizard didn't force the DM to hit them with Constitution Paralysis and knock them out of the fight either. But somebody should help them out if that happens, because of teamwork.

You don't force DM but you force your teammates to spend their sparse resources on keeping you active against a very common save type, or accept that you are going to be dead weight. This isn't about DM vs. players, this is about intra-party cohesion and maximising the chance of coming out alive/minimising the chance of TPK.

Somewhat imprecise search reveals 133/370 creatures of CR 10+ with Wis-save targeting ability (not counting spellcasting or spell-likes) and 63/551 spells as Wis-save ones. That's over 30% of creatures on this level able to target your Wisdom save: or 1/3rd of things you fight attacking your mind. Are you really okay with simply failing all those saves when all it would cost you is +1 Con-save and 10-20 HP to have a very reasonable chance of making them especially combined with Indomitable?


I don't know...I don't feel grumpy at all healing debuffed team members because I know that they do well when they're capable of taking actions. So I don't feel like anybody I heal is a burden, its just an inconvenience.

If you could come up with a way to convince me that every encounter ends up with the fighter debilitated by a Wisdom save, then maybe I'd change my mind. But as far as I can see, fighter's Wis weakness doesn't get any more countered than a Wizard's Charisma weakness or a Bard's Constitution weakness.


Obviously Bards (and all casters) take Con proficiency for Concentration so they have it for all other purposes (and most Constitution saves involve poison, which you can immunitize your party towards with Heroes' Feast, or max HP reduction which takes a lot to really get going). As for Cha, only 15/370 CR 10+ creatures show traces of Charisma-based save or X so you're facing those 4% of the time as opposed to ~36% of the time for Wis saves. The difference is obvious. Wis-saves are just way, way more expensive.

[Sneak Dog]

As do 99.999% of all caster vs martial "debates" on these forums. They always assume that the caster is built exactly for that one situation and can effortlessly rebuild for any threat on the fly, while the martial is hobbled under silly assumptions.

In real play, I've not run into these issues at all.

Long time ago, we got to a jumping 'puzzle' room with spikes. Not much of a puzzle in a TTRPG, but hey.

The fighter could make a skill check to jump the puzzle.
The wizard was considering between making a skill check to jump the puzzle, and spending a teleportation spell they had prepared.
The cleric was all for just jumping the puzzle and healing the party back up on the other side.
The druid loved being a bird, but someone mentioned jumping the puzzle meant potentially less resources spent.
The warlock was trying to get creative with illusions to cover the spikes and luring foes into it. Then jumping the puzzle afterwards.

Molding earth as cantrip was already out of the question.

The fighter has barely any tools at all from their class to deal with situations. Every spellcaster can have something prepared, though sometimes you're like the cleric who is out of luck in this situation. Other times you can combine magic and mundane tools to do really cool things like the warlock was trying to. In the end we decided to just jump the puzzle and save our resources.

[MoiMagnus]

Again, a "per encounter" argument is only good against low encounter days. If you only have to worry about one encounter, then you can burn through resources and not care. If you have multiple encounters stretched out through the day, you probably can't afford to use more than 1 spell per encounter. So, the guy who doesn't have to worry about spells, has more hit points, and a higher normal AC is just able to keep going longer. That's not even something that I would think would be up for debate at this point.

I think that in a thread where peoples ask for how to nerf Caster, it is fair to assume that there is a low number of encounters per long rest, and that it is a non-negotiable part of the gameplay (and that's why they're asking for other solutions).

+ Either because the PCs have a high level of control on the pacing to slow down the number of encounter per day,
+ or because the PCs are coward enough so that they'd rather lose a quest by retreating and running away from problems than stretching their number of encounter per day,
+ or that the table generally think that playing battles that are easy enough for casters to not need to spend more than one spell slot is boring and not worth their IRL time,
+ or probably many other reasons (but those are the ones I've actually seen in play)

[KorvinStarmast]

Low-magic balance: Casters do not automatically get spells of 6th level and above. Like any of them, ever. When they level up they can pick new spells of 1-5, or new cantrips, and they can use their high level slots to upcast their known spells, but any 6th+ spells need to be specifically targeted and quested for, one at a time. Nice old school hack to the game, I like it. :smallsmile:

Tier 4 isn't really supposed to be balanced. 9th level spells warp more than reality.

For the OP:

1. I have one word: feeblemind. 8th level spell. I am not going to suggest spamming it, but toss it in there now and again.

2. For the OP, I have Two Words: Legendary Saves

2a. For the OP, I have Two Other Words: Ticking Clock.
"If you don't get to the {place with the thing} before {this much time has elapsed} the nefarious evil one will complete their ritual and all of your base will belong to us" or variations on that theme.

3. For the OP I have Three Words: Monk(NPC) Stun Lock

In one of the books (might be the adventure book for Waterdeep?) there's an NPC that's like a level 17 monk.
What do high level monks do? Lock down spell casters with stun.

You seem to have a problem dealing with casters: there are some points to ponder for you.

[Xervous]

Long time ago, we got to a jumping 'puzzle' room with spikes. Not much of a puzzle in a TTRPG, but hey.

The fighter could make a skill check to jump the puzzle.
The wizard was considering between making a skill check to jump the puzzle, and spending a teleportation spell they had prepared.
The cleric was all for just jumping the puzzle and healing the party back up on the other side.
The druid loved being a bird, but someone mentioned jumping the puzzle meant potentially less resources spent.
The warlock was trying to get creative with illusions to cover the spikes and luring foes into it. Then jumping the puzzle afterwards.

Molding earth as cantrip was already out of the question.

The fighter has barely any tools at all from their class to deal with situations. Every spellcaster can have something prepared, though sometimes you're like the cleric who is out of luck in this situation. Other times you can combine magic and mundane tools to do really cool things like the warlock was trying to. In the end we decided to just jump the puzzle and save our resources.

What tier was the party in this example and what tier would you classify this sort of challenge as?

[OldTrees1]

What tier was the party in this example and what tier would you classify this sort of challenge as?

I would rate the challenge as Tier 1-2 depending on context.
If the teleportation spell was Misty Step, then it sounds like a Tier 1 party.
White Plume Mountain is level 8 and has something similar with enough complicating hazards to make it a low Tier 2 challenge.

[Eldariel]

1. I have one word: feeblemind. 8th level spell. I am not going to suggest spamming it, but toss it in there now and again.

This is decent for Sorcerers, Warlocks, Clerics and Druids but for Wizards specifically, this is an Int-save to which they're like to have ~+10-+11 at least by this point so this is one of the last spells I'd use against them. Ironically Feeblemind got completely shifted from being an anti-Wizard spell into being an anti-everything-but-Wizard-and-Artificer.


3. For the OP I have Three Words: Monk(NPC) Stun Lock

In one of the books (might be the adventure book for Waterdeep?) there's an NPC that's like a level 17 monk.
What do high level monks do? Lock down spell casters with stun.

Though it's worth noting that all casters are inclined to get Con-save proficiency for Concentration anyways so Constitution is probably the second worst save to target after their casting stat, worst against casters in general since the one thing they all do in common is need Concentration saves. If anything, the one save you should be targeting is Strength: that's generally a categorically weak for casters except Clerics (and even they lack proficiency so it's only +3). Something like Earthen Grasp or Watery Sphere has potential to lock down casters pretty hard.

As for Monks, if you wanna use them, make sure it's like Shadow Monk so they can teleport since otherwise they're really vulnerable at least as primary enemies due to lacking means to escape Wall of Force. They can be really annoying targets if you can't lock them down though.