Martials in T2 and beyond

[Skrum]

Just an observation post that I'm sure has been made a million times before because there's nothing new under the sun.

I've been a member of a very active group for 2 years. While there's the normal fluctuation of life, I've played roughly ~2/week either as a player or a DM during that time. Our game currently has a level cap of 10, and most characters are in the 5-8 range. With each player having as many as 10 characters, there's been *a lot* of "playtesting" of different classes, builds, etc.

And after all that time, there's a clear emergent dynamic - there's very little for martial classes to look forward to after level 5ish. They obviously need to get Extra Attack ASAP, but outside of some very specific class features for particular builds, martial classes are incredibly incentivized to multiclass into a casting class.

Why? They get almost nothing after extra attack, and are only giving up hit points in order to get spells.

Why on earth would a ranger continue to take levels as a ranger beyond 5? Take levels in druid or cleric and not only are you JUST AS GOOD of a archer/swordsman/what have you, you now also have healing word, aid, spiritual weapon, channel divinity or wild shape, etc etc etc. Like you loose almost nothing to gain massive improvements in party support, utility, and depending on what class you swap into, a great subclass feature (cause all of the full casters except bard have subclasses at level 1-2, for some reason).

The incentive for a fighter to get a few levels of sorcerer or wizard to get absorb elements, shield, and silvery barbs are just....like why wouldn't you. Just 2 levels gives you 3 casts of some of the best defensive spells in the game, and all you gave up is 4 HP. Working within our particular game's level cap, would you rather be fighter 10 or fighter 5 wizard 5? Now, not only do you have the great 1st level defensive spells, but also misty step, vortex warp, haste, and counterspell. You don't even need to go higher than the 13 base requirement in Int/Cha; the spells that appeal most to a gish don't even have saving throws.

And sure, if the game went into t3 you'd be giving up 3 attacks....but purely from a mechanical perspective, what would you rather have, 4/3/3 spells/long rest, or a third attack? In my mind it's not even close.

TBC, we have a more than a few pure martials. Not everyone in the group is a dirty optimizer, and there's also narrative/flavor reasons to not learn spells. But after 2 years, ~17 characters, and dozens of theorycrafts, the incentive of the system is obvious to me.

Edit: yes, dipping spellcaster presents some difficulty around somatic components, particularly if you want to sword and board. But these are not insurmountable, and even if you have no way to get around somatic components, there's *still* good reason to go caster anyway and only use spells that don't have somatic components. Like that's how little martials get.

Second Edit: this is a slightly different topic, but I'd throw warlock in the same category. Getting up to 2 3rds on a SR schedule is nice, and warlocks obviously have some cool features/subclass feature early on. But 6-10 for warlocks is about as bleak a level range as exists in the entire game, and I would encourage EVERY warlock to multiclass out at 6.

[Hurrashane]

I find fighters to be difficult to choose to multiclass out of. At level 6 you get an ASI, nice. At 7th a subclass feature. 8th another ASI, great! It'd only be at like, 9th that I'd consider dropping fighter unless I have a narrative reason to do so earlier. And I may just stay pure fighter if that's what the character is.

I also find monks hard to multiclass out of. Most of my character concepts that use monk don't really require multiclassing.

Barbarians I have either grown bored with or multiclasses out of (though one of those multiclasses was for strictly mechanical reason and the other for mostly narrative), but I don't think I've played one since the Tasha's improvements, so that could change.

I haven't played many Rangers and Paladins pure or otherwise, maybe I should change that.

[Amnestic]

Why on earth would a ranger continue to take levels as a ranger beyond 5? Take levels in druid or cleric and not only are you JUST AS GOOD of a archer/swordsman/what have you, you now also have healing word, aid, spiritual weapon, channel divinity or wild shape, etc etc etc. Like you loose almost nothing to gain massive improvements in party support, utility, and depending on what class you swap into, a great subclass feature (cause all of the full casters except bard have subclasses at level 1-2, for some reason).


At 6 you get an improvement to favored enemy/favored foe and natural explorer/deft explorer.
At 7 you get a subclass feature
At 8 you get an ASI
At 9 you get 3rd level spells.
At 10 you get natural explorer/deft explorer improvement, and hide in plain sight/nature's veil.
At 11 you get a subclass feature.
At 12 you get an ASI.
At 13 you get 4th level spells.
At 14 you get a favored enemy/favored foe improvement and Vanish.
At 15 you get your final subclass boost.
At 16 you get an ASI.
At 17 you get 5th level spells.
At 18 you get Feral Senses (lame)
At 19 you get an ASI
At 20 you get Foe Slayer (lame).

In addition, some subclass features (Beastmaster/Drakewarden) scale off of total ranger level as well, meaning even if you're not getting much else at a specific level you're still getting a boost to your beast. There's also the Primal Awareness spells at 9th, 13th, and 17th, for however much those are worth, if you took that feature.

How useful these levels are for your chosen role will depend on what your build is and how far you plan to dip, and indeed how far you can dip. If you get to Ranger 5 and the game will probably only go to 8th level, is it worth hopping out into Cleric? Or should you stick with Ranger, knowing that it's the only way you'll get another ASI boost?

Sometimes you will want to go Ranger 5/Cleric 3. But sometimes you won't. Sometimes you'll want to get Elven Accuracy instead, and if you're at Ranger 8, may as well stick it out to get Ranger 9 where you get Conjure Animals. And at 9, perhaps you wanna get 10 for Tireless and Nature's Veil. Well, at that point may as well stick it out to 11 for your subclass feature. And hey, another ASI is just around the corner.

Ranger certainly does have some breakpoints more desirable than others, but with the Tasha's improvements I think that generally I don't have difficulty justifying up to 15th/16th level over something else, especially with some subclasses.



The incentive for a fighter to get a few levels of sorcerer or wizard to get absorb elements, shield, and silvery barbs are just....like why wouldn't you. Just 2 levels gives you 3 casts of some of the best defensive spells in the game, and all you gave up is 4 HP. Working within our particular game's level cap, would you rather be fighter 10 or fighter 5 wizard 5? Now, not only do you have the great 1st level defensive spells, but also misty step, vortex warp, haste, and counterspell. You don't even need to go higher than the 13 base requirement in Int/Cha; the spells that appeal most to a gish don't even have saving throws.

You also miss out on an ASI, two subclass features, and Indomitable - at a tier where rerolling a save could be pretty useful. If the argument is "what makes you a better stab man" then being able to toss another +2 into Strength while the Fighter/Wizard cannot is a decent argument. Or maybe it's an extra feat. Or a +2 con to widen the health gap (to roughly 20 points difference, at level 10).

Samurai is a fairly solid, if not particularly complex subclass. 7th level gets you Wis-save proficiency(!) and lets you use your Wis instead of Cha for Persuasion stuff, turning you into a decent wis-focused Face character. Tireless Spirit lets you use Fighting Spirit more and gives a higher temp HP boost from it. These aren't nothing.



And sure, if the game went into t3 you'd be giving up 3 attacks....but purely from a mechanical perspective, what would you rather have, 4/3/3 spells/long rest, or a third attack? In my mind it's not even close.

There's a lot of good reasons to stay fighter, beyond just "I'm playing a fighter, not a fighter/wizard or fighter/sorc". There's also good reasons to multiclass. The two aren't mutually exclusive and it is always good to properly weigh up exactly what you get before making any decisions.

[J-H]

I think this is one of the points where games ending around level 13-15, or right at 20 with no epic boons, tend to do a disservice to single classed characters. If you're not hitting 20, why not multiclass a bit? Or if you hit 20, fight one battle, and then end, how useful is that capstone?

On the other hand, if you go to 20 + some epic boons, the barbarian having a pair of native 24s or the vengeance paladin being able to grow wings and an aura of terror are pretty good.

The monk capstone is bad, but the 18th level ability is really, really strong.

Ranger capstone and top-end spell slot selection is pretty terrible, no argument there.

[Skrum]

At 6 you get an improvement to favored enemy/favored foe and natural explorer/deft explorer.
At 7 you get a subclass feature
At 8 you get an ASI
At 9 you get 3rd level spells.
At 10 you get natural explorer/deft explorer improvement, and hide in plain sight/nature's veil.
At 11 you get a subclass feature.
At 12 you get an ASI.
At 13 you get 4th level spells.
At 14 you get a favored enemy/favored foe improvement and Vanish.
At 15 you get your final subclass boost.
At 16 you get an ASI.
At 17 you get 5th level spells.
At 18 you get Feral Senses (lame)
At 19 you get an ASI
At 20 you get Foe Slayer (lame).



Not to be mean, but you're not telling me about abilities I didn't know existed lol. My point is that these abilities are quite underwhelming.

Natural Explorer is one of the worst features in the game. It's awful.

Deft Explorer at 6th....OK, I'm not going to turn it down, sure. But it is better than even a single casting of healing word? I'm gonna say no, it's not. And the fact that multiclassing to cleric gives *a lot* more than just healing word, it's not even a close comparison.

The 7th level feature of Gloomstalker, one of the more popular hunter subclasses, gives prof with Wis saves. That's actually solid, but...not that impactful? +3 to your wisdom save gives you a 15 percentage point increase in making a save. I.e., still probably failing that save over half the time.

I can see wanting to go to 8 to get a second ASI in certain builds (archer builds, for instance). But if you multi out at 6th, you're delaying your ASI by a single level, and you'll also be getting all the features of a 4th level cleric or druid.





Ranger certainly does have some breakpoints more desirable than others, but with the Tasha's improvements I think that generally I don't have difficulty justifying up to 15th/16th level over something else, especially with some subclasses.

Can you go out of your way and find some reasons to stay ranger? Yeah, sure. And you'll be fine. 5e has a good floor on the classes, and you'll be effective. But if you and a buddy are both playing rangers, and you stay in the class till 12th, and he multiclassed druid at 6th, well he's getting 4th level spells when you're getting your 3rd ASI (not to mention the extra 5th level slot to upcast out of). He still has enough ASI's to get sharpshooter and crossbow expert, or SS and an Eleven Accuracy. There aren't many builds that need 3 ASI's to come online. Further, he'll be getting his 3rd ASI at 13th. Are you confident you're gonna feel good about the trades you each made?




You also miss out on an ASI, two subclass features, and Indomitable - at a tier where rerolling a save could be pretty useful. If the argument is "what makes you a better stab man" then being able to toss another +2 into Strength while the Fighter/Wizard cannot is a decent argument. Or maybe it's an extra feat. Or a +2 con to widen the health gap (to roughly 20 points difference, at level 10).

Samurai is a fairly solid, if not particularly complex subclass. 7th level gets you Wis-save proficiency(!) and lets you use your Wis instead of Cha for Persuasion stuff, turning you into a decent wis-focused Face character. Tireless Spirit lets you use Fighting Spirit more and gives a higher temp HP boost from it. These aren't nothing.

There's a lot of good reasons to stay fighter, beyond just "I'm playing a fighter, not a fighter/wizard or fighter/sorc". There's also good reasons to multiclass. The two aren't mutually exclusive and it is always good to properly weigh up exactly what you get before making any decisions.

Like I said, 5e has a high floor. Straight classed characters can do fine, even "weak" classes like monk or rogue. Having access to strong magic items can further boost these classes. But as my group pushes into 9th and 10th level content (we used to be more in the 6th and 7th range), combats are increasingly about who has spells. Having those reaction defenses, having the movement, having the sheer utility that spells give is simply on a different level of impact than what martials are getting as class features at 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th.

Pure martials are like a "one weird trick." They've got some moves, and if they get to use their moves, they look very solid. But then some other encounter, opponent, whatever, shows up and their thing doesn't quite work (looking at you rage resistance), and suddenly they're spinning their wheels. That happens far FAR less frequently to casters. Grabbing the utility of even low level spells makes for a far more well-rounded character, which to an experienced player like me, is way more fun and rewarding.

[Frogreaver]

Paladins have plenty to look forward to in t2 and t3 and improved divine smite at level 11 is great.

Fighters 3rd attack at level 11 is good.

Rogues reliable talent is great and sneak attack continues to improve.

Martial focused artificers keep getting magic items.

Really the only martials that don’t have good features to look forward to at least till later t3 or t4 are barbarian and ranger.

Though I wouldn’t begrudge any other martial for multiclassing out at level 5 or 6 either.

[Dork_Forge]

I was going to write a breakdown for each martial, but ultimately I think this is just a bias towards spells. It's perfectly fine if that's what you like on a character, but I don't think the argument is there that martial should be jumping ship after 5th level, it just makes no sense for a lot of them and is of questionable benefit to the rest.

[Skrum]

I was going to write a breakdown for each martial, but ultimately I think this is just a bias towards spells. It's perfectly fine if that's what you like on a character, but I don't think the argument is there that martial should be jumping ship after 5th level, it just makes no sense for a lot of them and is of questionable benefit to the rest.

I like playing competent, well-versed characters with lots of options. I actually have never played a full caster; my preference is overwhelmingly towards martials. But after two years of high-volume 5e play, the only martial class that really stands on its own is paladin. The other options can make some very specific builds that are good at certain things, but they're still gonna be overshadowed when it comes to deadly+ 9th and 10th level encounters.

[Dienekes]

I like playing competent, well-versed characters with lots of options. I actually have never played a full caster; my preference is overwhelmingly towards martials. But after two years of high-volume 5e play, the only martial class that really stands on its own is paladin. The other options can make some very specific builds that are good at certain things, but they're still gonna be overshadowed when it comes to deadly+ 9th and 10th level encounters.

I was once like you. I enjoy options, decision points, non-repetitive gameplay. But I also find the concept of a swordsman far cooler than any spell caster.

Then I played a Moon Druid and realized yeah, I can be a frontliner and still have way more fun with their spells than I ever had playing a non-magic class.

But, I think it's important to note, not everyone wants that style of play. There are people who do want to just get those ASIs and boosts to what they were doing since level 1-3 and they're satisfied. It's alright for the game to cater to that style of play as well.

It's a bit lame that for some reason they decided that options and depth of gameplay makes essentially a 1 to 1 correlation with how much magic the class has. Rather than having at least one class that's a high depth and complex mundane class and at least one class that's a low depth and repetitive magic class. But, that's 5e for you.

[Witty Username]

I was going to write a breakdown for each martial, but ultimately I think this is just a bias towards spells. It's perfectly fine if that's what you like on a character, but I don't think the argument is there that martial should be jumping ship after 5th level, it just makes no sense for a lot of them and is of questionable benefit to the rest.

I think there is a decent argument for barbarian to straight jump (6-8 do get you some stuff, but 3 or so levels of fighter can get alot of cool stuff, as a quick example).

Part of the issue is frontloading is the norm with every martial. So mix and match usualy is hard to argue with.

Fighter and Paladin get good stuff, monk has some good stuff if you survive monk. But generally, you lose less than if one multiclasses with a caster since the front end is a lot weaker to balance the later levels.

I put issues in martial progression are generally past level 11 (varies a bit with some of the better subclasses).

[Leon]

My point is that these abilities are quite underwhelming.

For you maybe.

The Why stay in X class is because that's what you wanted to play, not a MC Mishmash of other classes that can Do moar spell.

If you wanted to cast lots of spells the better thing to do is to play a Primary spellcaster first and then maybe MC to a Martial class if you want some of its features and then continue with your caster class. If you have chosen to play a more martially minded class its prob so you don't need to worry about casting as much. Spell casting despite what some people may think of it isn't the be all and end all of choices to make. A better MC for Ranger is Rogue ~ those two have always gone hand in hand.

[Skrum]

For you maybe.

The Why stay in X class is because that's what you wanted to play, not a MC Mishmash of other classes that can Do moar spell.

If you wanted to cast lots of spells the better thing to do is to play a Primary spellcaster first and then maybe MC to a Martial class if you want some of its features and then continue with your caster class. If you have chosen to play a more martially minded class its prob so you don't need to worry about casting as much. Spell casting despite what some people may think of it isn't the be all and end all of choices to make. A better MC for Ranger is Rogue ~ those two have always gone hand in hand.

If your guiding principle is purely "I want to be in class X" and you don't particularly care what the outcome is, sure, do whatcha want. Like I said previously, 5e in particular did a good job of making it quite hard to have an actually bad character. Even picking entirely on vibe and you'll more than likely get a character that can hold their own.

My observation is influenced by a few things. Playing a ton of Dnd, might even call it an unreasonable amount, meaning there's been well over 100 different characters in game. This gives a very good sample size of how characters perform at the table. Also, because we play so much, we're quite "good" at the game. As in, regardless of the particular character a player is using at the moment, we generally don't make tactical mistakes. So, the DMs ratchet up the difficulty. And so the players get better, and make better characters. This isn't really intentional on anyone's part, it's just what happens when a group plays together so much.

So, for our higher level groups especially (up to level 10), the encounters are quite difficult. Like Deadly ++, if one were to use an encounter calculator. One of our DM's actually sets his base encounters by "xp for a deadly encounter, and then double it." He works in some other factors, like number of attacks the monsters can make, but that's his baseline - and he isn't even one of the DM's that's killed a character.

At that level of pushing the envelope, it's harder and harder to ignore how valuable having spells is. Success or not often comes down to "does someone have a counterspell ready" or "did the Banishment on the Frost Giant work." Are there characters that are single-class or martial-only characters? Yes, many. And they do their thing. But they are more often on a replacement level than they are integral to party success.

[Aleroth]

So, for our higher level groups especially (up to level 10), the encounters are quite difficult. Like Deadly ++, if one were to use an encounter calculator. One of our DM's actually sets his base encounters by "xp for a deadly encounter, and then double it." He works in some other factors, like number of attacks the monsters can make, but that's his baseline - and he isn't even one of the DM's that's killed a character.

At that level of pushing the envelope, it's harder and harder to ignore how valuable having spells is. Success or not often comes down to "does someone have a counterspell ready" or "did the Banishment on the Frost Giant work." Are there characters that are single-class or martial-only characters? Yes, many. And they do their thing. But they are more often on a replacement level than they are integral to party success.

Having recently finished a 4 year long 1-20 D&D 5e campaign, I feel like I've got a pretty strong opinion on how casters size up against martials. In short, I really agree with your thoughts on this particular weak spot in 5e's design. I don't think there's much reason *not* to multiclass into caster classes, or outright disregard martial ones. To go on a more rambling note... We ran a party that was slightly more skewed toward spellcasters than martials, with a Thief Rogue (me), a Champion Fighter (who left after level 5 but remained a constant presence as an NPC we occasionally controlled), a Shadow Monk (who stayed with us to the end), a strong Wild Magic Sorcerer who later multiclassed into Paladin and became a gish, and *yet another* Sorcerer, Divine Soul this time. We had one more member to the team, but they used a janky-ass Pathfinder-to-5e ported alchemist class, so I won't comment much on them beyond the fact that they were the weakest of the casters.

My general feelings toward 5e's balancing is that it's pretty good in the early stretch of the game. Between 1 to 7 all of the classes keep up. Casters are strong, between cantrips and the multitude of spells at their disposal, but they're limited by not having too many spell slots, and while the 1-3rd level spells are all extremely good and useful, they're generally not so potent as to warp the entire campaign around them... though some, like Fly, come close. (4th level spells are limited by only having a single cast of it-- past 7th level, I feel like they completely derail any semblance of game balance.) Assuming encounters are paced appropriately and long rests aren't always consequence free, casters will have to ration their resources, giving martials lots of opportunities to shine with skill checks or plain combat potency. That was certainly our experience with things, early on.

But as the levels go on, the balance of the game starts to shift. Casters get access to more and more potent AoE spells, while many martial classes are stuck attacking whatever happens to be in reach, and while it never quite feels like you're useless, particularly while attacking big boss type enemies, you're never going to wipe out 15 enemies with a well placed fireball, or trivialize a skill challenge by using Fly or Teleport. At the same time, HP bloat starts to set in with enemies getting chunkier and chunkier, so doing 5d6 damage per turn as a Rogue just doesn't compare to doing 4d10 per turn, as well as applying exhaustion to all enemies in a 30.ft radius for up to 10 minutes. I know Rogues are somewhat weak in combat, and Monks are undertuned, but even if you're a supremely optimized Fighter strong enough to shred through most things in the monster manual, that's still about the only thing you're gonna be good at doing.

Don't get me started on Summons. The problem isn't any one spell in isolation, but the fact that casters can pick and choose the cream of the crop as they level up, and the further you go, the more spells they'll have-- the more spellslots they'll be able to use with impunity. What makes things worse is how poorly defined skill checks are. At early levels, it's not really an issue: most characters are pretty grounded in what they're capable of, and rolling a somewhat low or somewhat high number on your athletics roll feels like something you can adjudicate without much issue. There, skills are a mundane solution to relatively mundane problems.

But when you reach those later levels, when you're heroes strong enough to battle against demons and worse, and half of the party is literally warping reality with wishes, casting down meteor swarms and dominating minds, teleporting across half the continent and generally being -badass-, there's a huge issue with the non-caster half of the party only having a vague guideline of "5 = extremely easy - 30 = almost impossible" for what skill checks can do. Martials ability to actually engage in the non-combat parts of the game deteriorates massively, because there isn't enough guidelines or suggestions for what's *reasonable* for skills to accomplish. Combine that with different GMs emphasizing skills differently, and casters having about as much if not *more* access to skills (looking at you, BARD), you kinda come to ask yourself what the damn point is?

There were times where my GM threw me a bone, and made me really happy to be playing a Rogue. But it was never because of the system, or the way it was balanced. Multiclassing or maining a caster class is always the best option, because unless the setting and game explicitly disallows it, the game is just skewed in favor of it. It gives you the most narrative agency, the most options in combat.

[Amnestic]

Can you go out of your way and find some reasons to stay ranger? Yeah, sure. And you'll be fine. 5e has a good floor on the classes, and you'll be effective. But if you and a buddy are both playing rangers, and you stay in the class till 12th, and he multiclassed druid at 6th, well he's getting 4th level spells when you're getting your 3rd ASI (not to mention the extra 5th level slot to upcast out of). He still has enough ASI's to get sharpshooter and crossbow expert, or SS and an Eleven Accuracy. There aren't many builds that need 3 ASI's to come online. Further, he'll be getting his 3rd ASI at 13th. Are you confident you're gonna feel good about the trades you each made?

Yes.

My drake has an extra 30hp, can do a big fire breath, has extra damage every turn, gives me a floating damage resistance, and I can even dump that extra ASI into either health or, idk, ritual caster (wizard) to do cooler rituals than than the druid. I move faster than he does, my concentration isn't constantly being fought over so I can afford to use Favored Foe (rather than it being a dead feature), I've got an extra ~30 temporary HP per day, which I can use in ~7-8 hp bursts between fights so it's always useful, and I can turn invisible as a bonus action to get that advantage easily for Elven Accuracy that the druid can't.

Is the druid also getting cool stuff?

Sure it is, but if the question is "am I happy", then yes, I am. Not only am I happy, I'm probably doing a better job of my chosen role (damage) than the druid is, assuming Conjure Animals spam isn't on the table, but even if it is? I've had at least one level where I could do that (9th) but the Ranger/Druid could not.

[tokek]

Not to be mean, but you're not telling me about abilities I didn't know existed lol. My point is that these abilities are quite underwhelming.

Natural Explorer is one of the worst features in the game. It's awful.

Deft Explorer at 6th....OK, I'm not going to turn it down, sure. But it is better than even a single casting of healing word? I'm gonna say no, it's not. And the fact that multiclassing to cleric gives *a lot* more than just healing word, it's not even a close comparison.

The 7th level feature of Gloomstalker, one of the more popular hunter subclasses, gives prof with Wis saves. That's actually solid, but...not that impactful? +3 to your wisdom save gives you a 15 percentage point increase in making a save. I.e., still probably failing that save over half the time.

I can see wanting to go to 8 to get a second ASI in certain builds (archer builds, for instance). But if you multi out at 6th, you're delaying your ASI by a single level, and you'll also be getting all the features of a 4th level cleric or druid.



I've played a Ranger into tier 3 before multi-classing (into rogue, because you adapt a character to the campaign at least as much to the mechanics but that's another discussion). This is a Drakewarden so here is how it played out:

Level 6 - Roving & Favoured Foe goes up to 1d6
The extra move is always nice and swim speed let him be the MVP for couple of underwater sessions we did. The extra damage is hardly earth shattering but its nice enough
Party hp increase by 6+2 (con)+5 (drake)

Level 7 - Drake improvements.
The drake flies. At this point with at-will fly in the party obstacles that are solved by someone flying are permanently solved.
Extra 1d6 damage on the drake BA attack. Nice enough
Drake is a mount, never been super-relevant for this campaign until much later
Resistance to a chromatic damage of my choice. Huge bonus.
Party hp increase by 6+2 (con)+5 (drake)

Level 8 - ASI. Took +2 Dex for all-round value both in combat and for Stealth.
Party hp increase by 6+2 (con)+5 (drake)

Level 9 - 3rd level spells. Getting these one level earlier than if I had mulit-classed into Cleric or Druid after 5th level. Conjure Animals is fantastic even at this level. I should point out that with a Druid in the party we have had to carefully work out over time how not to narratively step on one-another's toes.
Speak with plants once per day. Rarely used to let the druid player have the space to be the nature person
Party hp increase by 6+2 (con)+5 (drake)

Level 10 Tireless and Nature’s Veil
Tireless is nice enough, its 4d8+16 THP spread over the day. Its not nothing. Recovering exhaustion has come up a couple of times and its relevant on a skill monkey character for avoiding disadvantage
Nature’s Veil is fantastic. Its basically a BA Greater Invisibility for one turn 4 times per day. I'm going to put it out there that this is better than any 3rd level spell for a ranger character
Party hp increase by 6+2 (con)+5 (drake)

Now that focus on party HP might not fit your style but it really does matter. Even if the ranger is taken out of the fight his Drake then becomes fully independent and capable and its smart enough to matter (only Int 1 less than the ranger in this case). As a player I love that if my character is taken out of the fight by some spell or effect the suddenly the drake is fully independent and capable - so I still have options to get myself out of the bad situation and am still fully engaged in the encounter.

Yes a cleric or druid 5 level multi would give me more spell slots and more spells known - but still only known up to level 3. But pure ranger up to level 10 makes a lot of sense. It really does. Tashas really fixed rangers for the levels of play most common at tables.

Oh and the 11th level feature? Its basically a transmuted metamagic fireball for free once per day and then "cast" with spell slots but it can't be counterspelled. Its not the mini nuke that fireball is at level 5 but its still great for clearing chaff and you can bypass resistances/immunity pretty much at will. Its better than the 3rd level spell due to the ability to switch damage types, it lacks range but you can use your drake to deliver it.

Above level 11 it does begin to get some less good features. Level 12 is an ASI and with Rangers being a bit MAD you probably still need an ASI. Level 13 is 4th level spells, there are some decent ones there but my guess is most rangers go with Guardian of Nature. At this point the spell level known is now lagging behind what the multi-class would get and the choice of spells for rangers does also hurt a bit. Level 14 is a fairly inconsequential bonus to Favored Foe damage and Vanish which is BA hide but you have BA invisibility so you will hardly ever need or use it. Level 14 is the first really poor level for ranger. Level 15 is another drake feature and now you are a proper dragon rider with reaction resistance to any damage of your choice up to 5 times per day. That's another great level.

Above level 15 its a bit of a wasteland of unimpressive features. Level 5 spells don't really impress compared to your other stuff, even a ranger probably does not really need more ASI by now so each of these is less important than the one before. Feral Senses is legendarily bad and so is the capstone. I did multi-class out of Ranger by this point - into Rogue because my character had the skill monkey role in the party so I decided to really own that role.

The half casters are already balanced all-rounders up to about level 10. Multiclassing for spellcasting rarely works well for them in this range, you actually delay when you get 3rd level spells from 9th level to 10th. But if they have a subclass feature that levels with their class level - such as the pet subclasses - it seems to me a particularly bad idea unless you have a specific gimmick in mind.

[Waazraath]

Just an observation post that I'm sure has been made a million times before because there's nothing new under the sun.

I've been a member of a very active group for 2 years. While there's the normal fluctuation of life, I've played roughly ~2/week either as a player or a DM during that time. Our game currently has a level cap of 10, and most characters are in the 5-8 range. With each player having as many as 10 characters, there's been *a lot* of "playtesting" of different classes, builds, etc.

And after all that time, there's a clear emergent dynamic - there's very little for martial classes to look forward to after level 5ish. They obviously need to get Extra Attack ASAP, but outside of some very specific class features for particular builds, martial classes are incredibly incentivized to multiclass into a casting class.

Why? They get almost nothing after extra attack, and are only giving up hit points in order to get spells.


Disagree. I summed up my experiences on balance in tier 2 and early tier 3 some times ago:


On class balance: if you play a dungeon crawl like these adventures, with a number of rests varying but more or less as intended (so no 5 minute adventuring days), it works exactly as it should. The Fighter was ‘always on’, until hit points were depleted. The Sorcerer needed to carefully manage resources – even up until early tier 3. Sometime he was encounter defining, quite more often than I expected he was plinking cantrips from the backline, and often just there contributing. And the two half casters were in between, having strong options that were always on (attack + aura’s for the Paladin and attack + steel defender for the Battle Smith), with solid boosts through resources that needed to be carefully managed.

To elaborate on the full caster: it was the most tricky to manage by far. Dead in Thay has many powerful casters as opponents, making counterspell really strong, but also made the Sorcerer burning through spell slots quite fast. And of course, being a sorcerer and spending sorcery points on metamagic (not on more spell slots), it had less spells than e.g. a wizard or land druid. There was a real trade-off, where a few times a possible TPK was averted with a counterspell, a room full of enemies was cleared by Fireball or Cone of Cold, and a Beholder or Kraken were taken out of the fight with Polymorph (and heightened spell) – which was massive fun. But the price for dominating a few encounters was to be not too relevant in many more, only cantripping for 2d10 or 3d10 damage. The player found it worth it.

The opposite was the PAM/sentinel Battle Master. Always relevant, just by positioning and keeping enemies at bay. Lots of tactical combat options: pushing enemies away (only to hit them again next turn with a reaction, or to break a grapple), frightening them, preventing them to move, using action surge for doubling attacks when needed to take somebody down who needed to go down fast or to close the distance with somebody just out of reach… it was the first time I saw a Battle Master at the table, and I was damned impressed. Maybe it was due to combining the right maneuvers with PAM/sentinel, but it was the character that by far had the most interesting tactical choices to make, and that in every combat (contrary to the other characters).

(full post: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?637157-Experiences-from-late-tier-2-early-tier-3 )

Of course, it all depends on builds, player skills, the way the DM runs the game (type and number of encounters), so peoples' milliage varies a lot. But in my experience martials keep getting great and very useful stuff over the levels.,

[diplomancer]

It never fails. When I see these sort of threads, I am going to see, at some point, the Opening Poster say "we run extra deadly combats". It's far rarer to see "we run extra long adventuring days" (which is surely another way to challenge specially skilled players, isn't it? And by extra long I don't necessarily mean "a day with 12 medium/hard encounters", though that is a possibility. It could also mean a day with 5 deadly encounters).

Those reaction casts of Shield are very good (specially when stacked on someone wearing Armor and Shield), no question about it. But they are much more valuable when they cover half of the rounds a player is engaged in battle over the course of a day, instead of 1/8 of them. If they're covering only 1/8 of them, that means that they are mostly emergency buttons and that the characters is not getting attacked that often, which will simply not be the case for most martials.

OP, you've been playing D&D intensively, sure, but, from what I got from the OP, somewhat narrowly (one group only, even if it's fairly large). Over the course of time, such a setup may lead to a situation where the group develops some meta that goes a bit against the game's expectations. Maybe your table is still keeping to the Adventuring Day guidelines as set-up in the DMG, but maybe not (and if you have, I don't see anything in your posts to identify it so far). I think it's worthwhile checking.

You've mentioned Warlocks. 6-10 is indeed a bit of a rough patch, specially 9-10 (I personally think the designers messed up a bit their math and Warlocks should get their 3rd slot at level 9. The whole "let's make level 11 a big one" kinda misled them there. It IS a big one, getting 6th level spells, and that's what all casters get-Clerics get also a Ribbon, and all other casters don't get anything else apart from the 6th level spell-there was no need to push it that far for the 3rd Warlock slot just to give them that sensation).

But if your table is regularly getting two short rests, they are roughly comparable with the other casters, and the value of the higher spell levels and extra invocation that they give up to multiclass is considerable, so the choice is not that clear... at least not if you are consistently getting in those two short rests. That you've specifically mentioned Warlocks may also be a sign that your table's adventuring days are not usually structured to the system's expectations. And this indeed favours Long Rest casters (and to a lesser extent, the Paladin) considerably.

[Dr.Samurai]

If your guiding principle is purely "I want to be in class X" and you don't particularly care what the outcome is, sure, do whatcha want. Like I said previously, 5e in particular did a good job of making it quite hard to have an actually bad character. Even picking entirely on vibe and you'll more than likely get a character that can hold their own.

My observation is influenced by a few things. Playing a ton of Dnd, might even call it an unreasonable amount, meaning there's been well over 100 different characters in game. This gives a very good sample size of how characters perform at the table. Also, because we play so much, we're quite "good" at the game. As in, regardless of the particular character a player is using at the moment, we generally don't make tactical mistakes. So, the DMs ratchet up the difficulty. And so the players get better, and make better characters. This isn't really intentional on anyone's part, it's just what happens when a group plays together so much.

So, for our higher level groups especially (up to level 10), the encounters are quite difficult. Like Deadly ++, if one were to use an encounter calculator. One of our DM's actually sets his base encounters by "xp for a deadly encounter, and then double it." He works in some other factors, like number of attacks the monsters can make, but that's his baseline - and he isn't even one of the DM's that's killed a character.

At that level of pushing the envelope, it's harder and harder to ignore how valuable having spells is. Success or not often comes down to "does someone have a counterspell ready" or "did the Banishment on the Frost Giant work." Are there characters that are single-class or martial-only characters? Yes, many. And they do their thing. But they are more often on a replacement level than they are integral to party success.
Just to echo what Diplomancer said, I think this is probably the case for a lot of optimized players that have pretty ingrained ideas about what's weak/strong and how the game should be played.

Basically a feedback loop has formed, and your table has developed a certain playstyle. And casters rock at this playstyle. And martials can't banish things or counterspell, so they are less impactful.

I don't entirely disagree with your overall point; I do think martials are sort of left in the dust for higher level features, and even the combat system is meh in general. Does that mean the system "incentivizes" people to multiclass out? I don't know, but I can see the argument.

However, the deadly++ stuff is a symptom of your playgroup and playstyle and system mastery. I can tell you if a DM tried to pull that at our table, we would wind up with a TPK, or the game would slow to a crawl while my fellow players scrutinize their spells prepared in ways they have never done before lol.

And on a personal note, I'm not really a fan of hyper-tactical magical SWAT D&D. I like when encounters go longer; I like engaging with monsters. It's some of the most fun I have in the game. I'm glad martials don't have buttons to press that just vanishes a creature. That'd be super boring to me.

[diplomancer]

I don't entirely disagree with your overall point; I do think martials are sort of left in the dust for higher level features, and even the combat system is meh in general. Does that mean the system "incentivizes" people to multiclass out? I don't know, but I can see the argument.



Yes, martials could definitely be improved to be more fun. Not more powerful, their power is alright in tier 2 (I do think they fall off later, specially from late tier 3; though that's a small percentage of the game, I still think it's an issue that needs fixing), but more fun.

[Amnestic]

I think generally martials hold up just fine in tier 1+2, maybe dipping a bit in tier 3 depending on your build, and generally have a lackluster tier 4 (hard to complete with 8th+9th level spells, just in general). Some of their capstones (monk, ranger) are kind of a joke, though this isn't unique to martials (see bard) either while others (barbarian, paladin (depending on subclass)) are pretty decent if not always exciting.

If the thread was "after level 15, there's not a lot of reason to stay single classed as a martial" I'd probably be more inclined to agree (though even then, I could see me taking monk to 17-19 quite happily), but after level 5? 10? Nah, they got stuff going on still.

And if we're including "martial" artificers in the list then they're solid throughout, right up until 20th.

[diplomancer]

I think generally martials hold up just fine in tier 1+2, maybe dipping a bit in tier 3 depending on your build, and generally have a lackluster tier 4 (hard to complete with 8th+9th level spells, just in general). Some of their capstones (monk, ranger) are kind of a joke, though this isn't unique to martials (see bard) either while others (barbarian, paladin (depending on subclass)) are pretty decent if not always exciting.

If the thread was "after level 15, there's not a lot of reason to stay single classed as a martial" I'd probably be more inclined to agree (though even then, I could see me taking monk to 17-19 quite happily), but after level 5? 10? Nah, they got stuff going on still.

And if we're including "martial" artificers in the list then they're solid throughout, right up until 20th.

I think Artificers are really interesting in how they really do seem to be very much in the middle of the Martial/Caster divide, and whether they will count as one or the other has probably more to do with your build choices.

I also agree with your point about level 15; in fact, that was just the level I had in mind when I said that Martials tend to fall off at late tier 3. 8th level spells can really start breaking the game with enough downtime.

[Trask]

It never fails. When I see these sort of threads, I am going to see, at some point, the Opening Poster say "we run extra deadly combats". It's far rarer to see "we run extra long adventuring days" (which is surely another way to challenge specially skilled players, isn't it? And by extra long I don't necessarily mean "a day with 12 medium/hard encounters", though that is a possibility. It could also mean a day with 5 deadly encounters).

Those reaction casts of Shield are very good (specially when stacked on someone wearing Armor and Shield), no question about it. But they are much more valuable when they cover half of the rounds a player is engaged in battle over the course of a day, instead of 1/8 of them. If they're covering only 1/8 of them, that means that they are mostly emergency buttons and that the characters is not getting attacked that often, which will simply not be the case for most martials.

OP, you've been playing D&D intensively, sure, but, from what I got from the OP, somewhat narrowly (one group only, even if it's fairly large). Over the course of time, such a setup may lead to a situation where the group develops some meta that goes a bit against the game's expectations. Maybe your table is still keeping to the Adventuring Day guidelines as set-up in the DMG, but maybe not (and if you have, I don't see anything in your posts to identify it so far). I think it's worthwhile checking.

You've mentioned Warlocks. 6-10 is indeed a bit of a rough patch, specially 9-10 (I personally think the designers messed up a bit their math and Warlocks should get their 3rd slot at level 9. The whole "let's make level 11 a big one" kinda misled them there. It IS a big one, getting 6th level spells, and that's what all casters get-Clerics get also a Ribbon, and all other casters don't get anything else apart from the 6th level spell-there was no need to push it that far for the 3rd Warlock slot just to give them that sensation).

But if your table is regularly getting two short rests, they are roughly comparable with the other casters, and the value of the higher spell levels and extra invocation that they give up to multiclass is considerable, so the choice is not that clear... at least not if you are consistently getting in those two short rests. That you've specifically mentioned Warlocks may also be a sign that your table's adventuring days are not usually structured to the system's expectations. And this indeed favours Long Rest casters (and to a lesser extent, the Paladin) considerably.

+1000

D&D 5e, or any edition really, has not been an "arena battle game" but a resource management one, paired with dungeon exploration as its "base reality". Of course when you play in such a way that resource management doesn't matter casters and paladins dominate.

[Skrum]

It never fails. When I see these sort of threads, I am going to see, at some point, the Opening Poster say "we run extra deadly combats". It's far rarer to see "we run extra long adventuring days" (which is surely another way to challenge specially skilled players, isn't it? And by extra long I don't necessarily mean "a day with 12 medium/hard encounters", though that is a possibility. It could also mean a day with 5 deadly encounters).

Not wrong, but it's also obvious to me why groups tend to fall in the other direction (5 min adventuring day or something like it)

- Time constraints. We're all adults with adult lives. We play for a few hours at a time, and there isn't really time to do 3, 4, 5 encounters within an adventure
- Storytelling. Medium encounters are a waste of time. Rolling initiative in the hopes that players will expend a few LR resources is just not very fun or a good use of time, IMO. Like if the encounter reaches a point where the outcome is inevitable, we often "garbage time" that and just end the encounter. Rolling the dice should be for when we DON'T know the outcome; that's why we're rolling dice. As a DM I've been developing some skill encounter type things where a ton of different skills will be checked and "combats" take place that are all resolved by skill rolls, and I let players expend resources in order to gain advantage on their check. But I can't imagine actually spending time on each of those encounters, rolling initiative, setting up the battle map, etc.



Those reaction casts of Shield are very good (specially when stacked on someone wearing Armor and Shield), no question about it. But they are much more valuable when they cover half of the rounds a player is engaged in battle over the course of a day, instead of 1/8 of them. If they're covering only 1/8 of them, that means that they are mostly emergency buttons and that the characters is not getting attacked that often, which will simply not be the case for most martials.

True, but see above. Challenging the characters via attrition is certainly possible, but comes with potentially extreme time costs, which cuts into other stuff like storytelling and roleplaying.




OP, you've been playing D&D intensively, sure, but, from what I got from the OP, somewhat narrowly (one group only, even if it's fairly large). Over the course of time, such a setup may lead to a situation where the group develops some meta that goes a bit against the game's expectations. Maybe your table is still keeping to the Adventuring Day guidelines as set-up in the DMG, but maybe not (and if you have, I don't see anything in your posts to identify it so far). I think it's worthwhile checking.

Fair



You've mentioned Warlocks. 6-10 is indeed a bit of a rough patch, specially 9-10 (I personally think the designers messed up a bit their math and Warlocks should get their 3rd slot at level 9. The whole "let's make level 11 a big one" kinda misled them there. It IS a big one, getting 6th level spells, and that's what all casters get-Clerics get also a Ribbon, and all other casters don't get anything else apart from the 6th level spell-there was no need to push it that far for the 3rd Warlock slot just to give them that sensation).

But if your table is regularly getting two short rests, they are roughly comparable with the other casters, and the value of the higher spell levels and extra invocation that they give up to multiclass is considerable, so the choice is not that clear... at least not if you are consistently getting in those two short rests. That you've specifically mentioned Warlocks may also be a sign that your table's adventuring days are not usually structured to the system's expectations. And this indeed favours Long Rest casters (and to a lesser extent, the Paladin) considerably.

Agreed, but I would go further - having classes on different rest schedules was a huge mistake. SR characters aren't just hampered by not getting frequent short rests, they *also* don't really have the juice for a long combats either (until they're very high level and monks have 13 Ki points or something). A 7 round, challenging combat and the warlock brings 2 spells? The fighter has a single action surge? That's just not enough resources. Even a depleted 7th level wizard could very plausibly have 2 1sts, 1 2nd, and 2 3rds, plus whatever subclass features (like enchanters get). That's less than half of their total resources, and still considerably more than the warlock or fighter.

The ideal state for fighters, warlocks, and monks (especially pre t3 monk) is hard encounters with a SR every 1-2 encounters. Not only have I not heard of many tables that play that way, but thinking about how that would look in practice does not sound very appealing. Combat takes a lot of time. Grinding through encounter after encounter, with no one encounter being particularly threatening, that's just a slog. And absolutely, those SR characters would love it. But the barb would be almost non-functional, and the casters would be incredibly bored using only their cantrips while the SR classes dominate.

As a way to switch it and give other classes some time to feel like a million bucks, sure. But I think there's quite a bit of structural forces pushing AGAINST this style of game.

[Amnestic]

Move all the fullcasters onto pact casting instead, problem solved :smallcool:

[Dr.Samurai]

I feel like a lot of the stuff we're complaining about are things that 4E attempted to resolve.

Like... this is an issue of multiclassing and how it interacts with the front-loaded nature of classes, as much as it is an issue of lack of inspiration and design when it comes to martial features.

4E said "you can't take levels in other classes, but you can take a feat and gain a thing from another class".

But given the allergy many people had to 4E, I think many find the martial caster disparity a feature, not a bug.

[Trask]

I feel like a lot of the stuff we're complaining about are things that 4E attempted to resolve.

Like... this is an issue of multiclassing and how it interacts with the front-loaded nature of classes, as much as it is an issue of lack of inspiration and design when it comes to martial features.

4E said "you can't take levels in other classes, but you can take a feat and gain a thing from another class".

But given the allergy many people had to 4E, I think many find the martial caster disparity a feature, not a bug.

I agree that its an issue of multiclassing, its got fundamental problems as a system that favor dipping and cherrypicking frontloaded classes and, of course, casters over everyone else.

Never played 4e, but multiclassing-as-feats sounds like a good idea. Its even got some groundwork in 5e with magic initiate, fighting initiate, martial adept, metamagic initiate, eldritch initiate, the armor proficiency feats, and so on.

[tokek]

Agreed, but I would go further - having classes on different rest schedules was a huge mistake. SR characters aren't just hampered by not getting frequent short rests, they *also* don't really have the juice for a long combats either (until they're very high level and monks have 13 Ki points or something). A 7 round, challenging combat and the warlock brings 2 spells? The fighter has a single action surge? That's just not enough resources. Even a depleted 7th level wizard could very plausibly have 2 1sts, 1 2nd, and 2 3rds, plus whatever subclass features (like enchanters get). That's less than half of their total resources, and still considerably more than the warlock or fighter.



This was the part of warlock that I found clunky and its why I can't love pact magic like some people do. If your DM sometimes throws in a real long challenge of an encounter (or linked encounters) you don't have the sustained resources to still act like a caster. Its EB for you little warlock. Its the problem of being good when it doesn't matter and weak when its an incredibly high stakes part of the campaign. 5e warlocks crush medium encounters.

So I am far more willing than others to give the UA warlock a fair try. Because I've hit those limits on the 5e warlock and its not how many spells you get per day - its how many spells you get in the encounter that defines your day - that matters to me.

[Amnestic]

This was the part of warlock that I found clunky and its why I can't love pact magic like some people do. If your DM sometimes throws in a real long challenge of an encounter (or linked encounters) you don't have the sustained resources to still act like a caster. Its EB for you little warlock. Its the problem of being good when it doesn't matter and weak when its an incredibly high stakes part of the campaign. 5e warlocks crush medium encounters.

Is that a problem? I've played warlocks and I never had an issue defaulting to EB. It does near-equivalent damage to a martial's "I attack" and if you want you can toss other stuff on top of it via invocations.

Depending on your pact you might be ritual casting between fights or also using your familiar as a bonus action attack.

Casting a large spell, whether it's a one-and-done (fireball) or a concentration thing (banishment, Summon X) and then dropping down to EB has never been a problem for my warlock play.

[stoutstien]

I've only seen an issue when people fall for the damage paradox trap. I will say generally the half casters really hit a sweet spot. You gut spellcasting a little bit and move those features over and I don't think you'd ever see a problem.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've only seen an issue when people fall for the damage paradox trap. I will say generally the half casters really hit a sweet spot. You gut spellcasting a little bit and move those features over and I don't think you'd ever see a problem.

Heretical idea: No spells above 5th level exist as spells. Full casters still get the high level slots, but can only upcast with them. Instead, everyone gets "high level features" modeled after (but adapted) from some of those high level spells[1]. And if you really need them, they're available by plot-type rituals (ie real rituals with requirements, not just "I cast the spell, but slower").

[1] A moon druid capstone of getting effectively shapechange 1x/day, for example. An evoker wizard getting meteor swarm as a capstone. A barbarian getting a point-blank earthquake (adapted). Etc.

[Skrum]

I feel like a lot of the stuff we're complaining about are things that 4E attempted to resolve.

Like... this is an issue of multiclassing and how it interacts with the front-loaded nature of classes, as much as it is an issue of lack of inspiration and design when it comes to martial features.

Disagree here. Martials are too incentivized to multi, there for we should take away that option is not a good answer at all. That's just leaning into the caster/martial divide



But given the allergy many people had to 4E, I think many find the martial caster disparity a feature, not a bug.

I think 4e was on to a lot of good stuff, conceptually speaking. Giving martials actual abilities was great. That's what should be taken away from 4e, not a lack of multiclassing.

[diplomancer]

Not wrong, but it's also obvious to me why groups tend to fall in the other direction (5 min adventuring day or something like it)

- Time constraints. We're all adults with adult lives. We play for a few hours at a time, and there isn't really time to do 3, 4, 5 encounters within an adventure

I don't see much the connection, unless you need to finish the adventure, or at least the "chapter", in one game session. I don't think I've ever played 5e D&D with anyone but adults with adult lives, except for the one time I was DM'ing solo with my 8 year old nephew (a very fun experience, but an outlier on my gaming experience)


- Storytelling. Medium encounters are a waste of time. Rolling initiative in the hopes that players will expend a few LR resources is just not very fun or a good use of time, IMO. Like if the encounter reaches a point where the outcome is inevitable, we often "garbage time" that and just end the encounter. Rolling the dice should be for when we DON'T know the outcome; that's why we're rolling dice. As a DM I've been developing some skill encounter type things where a ton of different skills will be checked and "combats" take place that are all resolved by skill rolls, and I let players expend resources in order to gain advantage on their check. But I can't imagine actually spending time on each of those encounters, rolling initiative, setting up the battle map, etc.

1- No need to set up battle maps for all encounters, it really speeds things up when you don't, and it's a good way to deal with Medium difficulty encounters. But you don't need even to use those. Use 3 deadly, 6-7 rounds encounters, with one short rest between each encounter, and you will be quite close to system expectations. If you want to go beyond system's expectations to really challenge your players, use about 5 deadly encounters.

2- If, for story reasons, you think "one big fight a day" is a better medium for conveying the story you're telling, Gritty Realism is the variant for you.


Agreed, but I would go further - having classes on different rest schedules was a huge mistake. SR characters aren't just hampered by not getting frequent short rests, they *also* don't really have the juice for a long combats either (until they're very high level and monks have 13 Ki points or something). A 7 round, challenging combat and the warlock brings 2 spells? The fighter has a single action surge? That's just not enough resources. Even a depleted 7th level wizard could very plausibly have 2 1sts, 1 2nd, and 2 3rds, plus whatever subclass features (like enchanters get). That's less than half of their total resources, and still considerably more than the warlock or fighter.

I've been putting some thought into this, because of the debate that arose in the new Warlock thread, and I'm beginning to think quite the opposite. Short Rest recovery characters (be it because of class or subclass, but characters who recover a significant ammount of their power on a Short Rest, not just a bit here and there) are necessary, or, at least, very helpful to balance the game without going into the 4E model. I'll explain:

As D&D has been traditionally designed, some classes (usually casters) have a few powerful features, that recharge at a slow rate, and weaker at-will features, while other classes (usually martials) are the opposite; they don't have as many slowly-recharging powerful features, but their at-will actions are stronger. If those are the only two types of classes, the gap between them is too big, and those with the slowly recharging features will push to recover them once they're spent... even when they spent it quicker than they should have done, and when the at-will classes are still quite capable of keeping going. In fact, the slower recovery classes may flat-out refuse to keep going, and the group is at an impasse.

Enter Short Rests, and Short Rest recovery classes. They don't want the day to be over as quickly as the slower recovery classes, they can keep going along with the at-will classes as long as they pause for a bit. As this pause also allows the at-will classes to recover their main "recovery resource" (HPs), they will usually be ok with doing it. Give the slower recovery classes a few bones for the Short Rest and they will usually, sometimes begrudgingly, also accept the compromise. And so the adventuring day keeps going, and the balance between the classes with the powerful but slow-recovery resources and the classes with few resources but strong at-will actions is maintained.

The other solution is the 4e solution. Throw away all ideas about how D&D has been traditionally designed, and just give all classes the same Resource structure.

But if your table, for whatever reason, decides to discard the expectations of the game, then the conclusions you get about class disparity from that decision will not be universalized to those who ARE, in fact, following the expectations of the game, even if you are having more fun by doing so.

And does a Warlock feel bad in a 6-round combat deadly fight? Not really. Casting Wall of Fire and another big non-concentration spell and then playing pinball with Repelling Blast for the rest of the fight is fun. Their at-will may not be as good as the "mostly pure at-will" classes, but it's serviceable enough to make a contribution in the last 4-5 rounds of combat, after having done the biggest contributions of the party in the first two rounds. Or maybe making one big contribution in the first round and keeping the other in reserve for the mid-fight"


I feel like a lot of the stuff we're complaining about are things that 4E attempted to resolve.

Like... this is an issue of multiclassing and how it interacts with the front-loaded nature of classes, as much as it is an issue of lack of inspiration and design when it comes to martial features.

4E said "you can't take levels in other classes, but you can take a feat and gain a thing from another class".

But given the allergy many people had to 4E, I think many find the martial caster disparity a feature, not a bug.

Precisely. And I didn't like 4e, though I played it very little (to be more precise, the little I played of it was moderately fun, but didn't fell like D&D to me, who until then had only been used to TSR-era D&D). But it's indisputable that 4e dealt with the issue in a table-independent manner.

[stoutstien]

Heretical idea: No spells above 5th level exist as spells. Full casters still get the high level slots, but can only upcast with them. Instead, everyone gets "high level features" modeled after (but adapted) from some of those high level spells[1]. And if you really need them, they're available by plot-type rituals (ie real rituals with requirements, not just "I cast the spell, but slower").

[1] A moon druid capstone of getting effectively shapechange 1x/day, for example. An evoker wizard getting meteor swarm as a capstone. A barbarian getting a point-blank earthquake (adapted). Etc.
Would be a lot better than the current Direction.
I will say that the games that I ran where there were no full casters have been the most enjoyable and memorable. Well to be fair one of the groups did have a full caster but it was a druid who just used all their spell slots on flame blade.

[Dr.Samurai]

Disagree here. Martials are too incentivized to multi, there for we should take away that option is not a good answer at all. That's just leaning into the caster/martial divide

I think 4e was on to a lot of good stuff, conceptually speaking. Giving martials actual abilities was great. That's what should be taken away from 4e, not a lack of multiclassing.
Casters are incentivized to multi-class as well. Fighter and paly dips are very popular for otherwise full casters.

It's less about "martials always want to mulitclass, therefore remove it" and more of "so long as classes are so front-loaded compared to later levels in your own class, multi-classing will be tempting".

And I don't really see a need to protect multi-classing in it's current form. I was watching the video DNDShorts did with D4 about the fighter and barbarian, and Colby says at one point "You don't want to make barbarian features too good, because then there is no reason to multiclass" and I'm like "these normie optimizer takes are getting more and more irritating" lol.

Again, I'm not saying get rid of multi-classing, but it is a part of this issue.

[Skrum]

Heretical idea: No spells above 5th level exist as spells. Full casters still get the high level slots, but can only upcast with them. Instead, everyone gets "high level features" modeled after (but adapted) from some of those high level spells[1]. And if you really need them, they're available by plot-type rituals (ie real rituals with requirements, not just "I cast the spell, but slower").

[1] A moon druid capstone of getting effectively shapechange 1x/day, for example. An evoker wizard getting meteor swarm as a capstone. A barbarian getting a point-blank earthquake (adapted). Etc.

I would really like this kind of thing. There's lots of spells that, mechanically, would be perfect for epic level warriors in terms of physical feats. Make them 1/day class features and good to go.

I'd probably favor stopping spell progression at 4th though xD. Raise Dead can pound sand

[diplomancer]

I was watching the video DNDShorts did with D4 about the fighter and barbarian, and Colby says at one point "You don't want to make barbarian features too good, because then there is no reason to multiclass" and I'm like "these normie optimizer takes are getting more and more irritating" lol.

I laughed. I like having the option of multiclassing, but talk about seeing things in a topsy-turvy way!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Casters are incentivized to multi-class as well. Fighter and paly dips are very popular for otherwise full casters.

It's less about "martials always want to mulitclass, therefore remove it" and more of "so long as classes are so front-loaded compared to later levels in your own class, multi-classing will be tempting".

And I don't really see a need to protect multi-classing in it's current form. I was watching the video DNDShorts did with D4 about the fighter and barbarian, and Colby says at one point "You don't want to make barbarian features too good, because then there is no reason to multiclass" and I'm like "these normie optimizer takes are getting more and more irritating" lol.

Again, I'm not saying get rid of multi-classing, but it is a part of this issue.

I'm saying to get rid of multi-classing.

Really, I agree. Multiclassing, probably for 3e legacy reasons more than any other single thing, has become this "expected default". Which is totally back-to-front and makes an objectively tacked-on, half-baked feature set[1] wag the entire dog.

I've often wondered how many of the people who complain about this (and other similar things) would react to playing a "by the book, no multiclassing" game. Or maybe even a "no variants" game. Where "by the book" means a full complement of encounters per day, random magic items (and only Xanathar's for purchasing/making them), good old dungeon crawl.

I'll be the first to admit that that's not the style I run. But I also run very far from the edge of the difficulty curve. "Challenge gaming" is not my style at all, being much more narrative driven. And last session, the fighter and monk were the stars because the wizard (analogue) and druid ended up going through their slots pretty early on and there was absolutely no way they were long resting (while short rests were, if not easy, at least possible).

[1] I mean, it was tacked on without play-testing right at the end of the design process due to popular demand, not a central part of the game from word one.

[Witty Username]

Heretical idea: No spells above 5th level exist as spells. Full casters still get the high level slots, but can only upcast with them. Instead, everyone gets "high level features" modeled after (but adapted) from some of those high level spells[1]. And if you really need them, they're available by plot-type rituals (ie real rituals with requirements, not just "I cast the spell, but slower").


Alternatively, just give martials features on par with 6-9th level spells.
Like say giving barbarian damage Immunity while raging (seems popular on zealot with rage beyond death).
Or maybe fighter getting a version of action surge that they can use every round for a minute (mirroring the action economy changes of something like simulacrum).
Give rogue some form of permanent advantage on all d20 rolls in the vein of foresight
Paladin’s already have their super saiyan transformation at 20 as part of the subclasses, some of them are about right as is.

As for cutting the top end of spells entirely, I feel this would either, make the problem worse, or take away tools allowing casters to participate in tier 3 and 4, the two big concerns are damage and legendary resistance.
Damage spells already have scaling issues in tier 3 due to the lack of damage spells in the 6-8 range. Fireball doesn't scale well enough upcasting (for reference an 11th level fighter is out damaging fireball without resources or feats. The other is options to deal with encounters with legendary resistance, generally burning through legendary resistance takes time, and is best avoided. So everyone needs means to participate in combat when legendary resistance is in play, most caster tools related to this (buffs, and non-save disruption like walls) are at the higher end of spells. Buffs tend to not upcast well or at all, and non-save effects are in a similar line of thinking.

To sort some of these problems would require buffing the spells from 1-5, or redesigning monster statblocks to accommodate the new baseline (generally, reducing HP across the board and cutting things like legendary resistance entirely).


Another quick problem since 4e was brought up, the problem I have with 4e is not balance but distinction. To this day, I cannot differenciate between classes. Their is not enough difference in design to create play distinction.
Alot of proposed fixes to the caster-martial disparity involve removing differences in play. If the only difference between casters and martials is casters attack with the color blue and martials attack with the color red, then their isn't a point to either of them.

--
Multiclassing isn't a problem if classes are designed in ways that people want to stick with. If people want to multiclass for purely mechanical reasons, it is a sign that there is not enough in the rest of the class to encourage play.
Every level not taken should be a sacrifice for something else. If you switch classes at 5, that costs the features at 6. If everyone proposes multiclassing at 5, that is a sign that the features at 6 are not functioning.

A microcosm of this, barbarian is commonly to suggested to multiclass at 5, Paladin is almost always encouraged to wait until 6. It is no accident that 6 is when Paladin gets aura of protection.
Martials not getting good features is the root of most issues with multiclassing. The rest is sorcerer getting exclusive access to metamagic.

[Trask]

Whenever these threads turn to suggestions about how to buff martials (not that some don't deserve it), my thoughts always turn to pity for the poor, anemic monsters of the MM and other sourcebooks. And then my or my DM's (sometimes fumbling) attempts to buff them just turns battles into even longer 2-hour affairs. Blech.

[diplomancer]

Another quick problem since 4e was brought up, the problem I have with 4e is not balance but distinction. To this day, I cannot differenciate between classes. Their is not enough difference in design to create play distinction.
Alot of proposed fixes to the caster-martial disparity involve removing differences in play. If the only difference between casters and martials is casters attack with the color blue and martials attack with the color red, then their isn't a point to either of them.

It is, indeed, very hard to keep the classes distinct from one another if they all have the same resource structure (which is how you make balance to be entirely independent of a DM's pacing decision). It's possible, I suppose, but it's hard.

[Skrum]

I don't see much the connection, unless you need to finish the adventure, or at least the "chapter", in one game session. I don't think I've ever played 5e D&D with anyone but adults with adult lives, except for the one time I was DM'ing solo with my 8 year old nephew (a very fun experience, but an outlier on my gaming experience)

That's exactly it; we try to wrap games episodically each night. People will run locked sessions occasionally with a part 1, 2, 3, etc., but those aren't the norm.






I've been putting some thought into this, because of the debate that arose in the new Warlock thread, and I'm beginning to think quite the opposite. Short Rest recovery characters (be it because of class or subclass, but characters who recover a significant ammount of their power on a Short Rest, not just a bit here and there) are necessary to balance the game without going into the 4E model. I'll explain: snip




I mean, I see the argument on paper, but all actual evidence to the contrary.

If the encounters are medium or even hard difficulty, the full casters are just going to hold their spells back. The SR's will have some fun laying waste to undertuned encounters, but some point you're just making up superfluous ways for the SR's to feel good. When the chips are down and the BBEG is there, the SR's are going to have to be frugal knowing it's gonna be a 6 round fight, while the casters are like "ok it's go time."

This might be "balanced" in some sense, but the narrative weight of where each character shines is really screwed up. Styling on punks is not the same as going tooth and nail with the BBEG.

It's also really hard from a DM's perspective to balance multiple encounters. I can dial in pretty well what's gonna push a party to the edge in a single big battle and the party is starting at full. Planning 4 separate encounters that collectively are supposed to add up to the same thing? That's like N-dimensional chess.

[diplomancer]

That's exactly it; we try to wrap games episodically each night. People will run locked sessions occasionally with a part 1, 2, 3, etc., but those aren't the norm.





I mean, I see the argument on paper, but all actual evidence to the contrary.

If the encounters are medium or even hard difficulty, the full casters are just going to hold their spells back. The SR's will have some fun laying waste to undertuned encounters, but some point you're just making up superfluous ways for the SR's to feel good. When the chips are down and the BBEG is there, the SR's are going to have to be frugal knowing it's gonna be a 6 round fight, while the casters are like "ok it's go time."

This might be "balanced" in some sense, but the narrative weight of where each character shines is really screwed up. Styling on punks is not the same as going tooth and nail with the BBEG.

It's also really hard from a DM's perspective to balance multiple encounters. I can dial in pretty well what's gonna push a party to the edge in a single big battle and the party is starting at full. Planning 4 separate encounters that collectively are supposed to add up to the same thing? That's like N-dimensional chess.

I mean, all I can answer to that is the conclusion I put in italics in my previous post:


But if your table, for whatever reason, decides to discard the expectations of the game, then the conclusions you get about class disparity from that decision will not be universalized to those who ARE, in fact, following the expectations of the game, even if you are having more fun by doing so.

But I'd like to mention I also see in your post several self-fulfilling prophecies, as well as particular play preferences that are not universalizable. Belkar much prefers to kill with his own hands a small army of goblinoids and feel like a sexy, shoeless, God of War, then to make a build that is great against Vampire Durkon.

[tokek]

Alternatively, just give martials features on par with 6-9th level spells.
Like say giving barbarian damage Immunity while raging (seems popular on zealot with rage beyond death).
Or maybe fighter getting a version of action surge that they can use every round for a minute (mirroring the action economy changes of something like simulacrum).
Give rogue some form of permanent advantage on all d20 rolls in the vein of foresight
Paladin’s already have their super saiyan transformation at 20 as part of the subclasses, some of them are about right as is.



The monk lvl 18 ability is a decent model for that. Its a fantastic ability that would not look out of place as maybe an 8th level spell - and you can use it many times per day.

In a similar vein I think the new UA 17th level fighter ability feels epic enough to stand up there. Don't need to action surge every turn if your main shtick is being unstoppable.

Rogues and Barbarians really should have something equivalent at that same sort of level IMO

[PhoenixPhyre]

Whenever these threads turn to suggestions about how to buff martials (not that some don't deserve it), my thoughts always turn to pity for the poor, anemic monsters of the MM and other sourcebooks. And then my or my DM's (sometimes fumbling) attempts to buff them just turns battles into even longer 2-hour affairs. Blech.

Agreed. That's the fundamental problem with (current) casters--they break the system expectations for monsters wide open. Not so much because of numbers (really, caster numbers aren't that much bigger than martial numbers at high levels), but because of
1) the ease of locking things down (looking at you, force cage and banish)
2) the ease of maintaining concentration
3) action economy (looking at you simulacrum + various summoning spells)

If you just give everyone "9th level equivalents", then you have to rewrite everything to keep up. As in, rebuild the combat engine from the ground up.

Whereas if you keep the peak at "5th level equivalent, plus upcasting" in the main, you can give one-off big flashy abilities fairly sanely without needing a full system rewrite.

And no, going to Deadly xN encounters doesn't solve anything. In fact, it just makes the "nova or die" problem worse in a circular fashion and kicks the Red Queen's Race[1] pathology into high gear.


It is, indeed, very hard to keep the classes distinct from one another if they all have the same resource structure (which is how you make balance to be entirely independent of a DM's pacing decision). It's possible, I suppose, but it's hard.

Agreed.

[1] "have to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place". It's one of the pathological cases of optimization, where unless you optimize harder and harder, the monsters out scale you and you splat...and if you optimize too hard, the monsters themselves splat in an unsatisfying way. It's not inevitable with optimization races, but it's an easy trap to fall into.

[J-H]

DMing in person, I have only seen two multi-class characters:
A monk who went to 18, then took his last 2 levels in rogue.
A Champion 3/Arcane Trickster 9(?). The fighter levels added some proficiencies, hp, and an occasional crit, and that's it.

I see them more in forum games, especially high level one-shot types.

Having just finished a game at 20+ epic boons, Paladin 20 can be incredibly powerful through saves, damage, endurance, damage reduction for everyone through the aura + Circle of Power. Samurai 20 is pretty good too, able to, in the right conditions, make 19 attacks in a single round's time (1 reaction, 1 turn with action surge + fighting spirit, dropping advantage on one attack to get an extra attack, then doing the same thing again when reduced to 0).

Going to 20 and playing there for a while is a lot better for barbarians than ending at 13 or 16.

Rangers still need some work.
Rogues run into the challenge of being a damage character with only one attack per round, so the best they can usually hope for is around 11d6+5 + magic weapons for consistent damage of around 40-50 but no way to boost it outside of crits and off-turn attacks.


The monk lvl 18 ability is a decent model for that. Its a fantastic ability that would not look out of place as maybe an 8th level spell - and you can use it many times per day.

In a similar vein I think the new UA 17th level fighter ability feels epic enough to stand up there. Don't need to action surge every turn if your main shtick is being unstoppable.

Rogues and Barbarians really should have something equivalent at that same sort of level IMO

Rogues: At level 18, nobody gets advantage against you, ever. You can be blind, in the darkness, against an enemy with Foresight, and they still don't have advantage.
Barbarians: A deathblow? Con save, no you didn't. Again? Ok, Con save. Zealot steps this up even further, becoming immune to death as long as rage is maintained. That comes online at level 14 and it's pretty sweet to see a barbarian going toe to toe with a dragon and simply not caring that he's spent 2 rounds being shredded.

[stoutstien]

Agreed. That's the fundamental problem with (current) casters--they break the system expectations for monsters wide open. Not so much because of numbers (really, caster numbers aren't that much bigger than martial numbers at high levels), but because of
1) the ease of locking things down (looking at you, force cage and banish)
2) the ease of maintaining concentration
3) action economy (looking at you simulacrum + various summoning spells)

If you just give everyone "9th level equivalents", then you have to rewrite everything to keep up. As in, rebuild the combat engine from the ground up.

Whereas if you keep the peak at "5th level equivalent, plus upcasting" in the main, you can give one-off big flashy abilities fairly sanely without needing a full system rewrite.

And no, going to Deadly xN encounters doesn't solve anything. In fact, it just makes the "nova or die" problem worse in a circular fashion and kicks the Red Queen's Race[1] pathology into high gear.



Agreed.

[1] "have to run faster and faster just to stay in the same place". It's one of the pathological cases of optimization, where unless you optimize harder and harder, the monsters out scale you and you splat...and if you optimize too hard, the monsters themselves splat in an unsatisfying way. It's not inevitable with optimization races, but it's an easy trap to fall into.

You know I've never heard anybody compare the optimization paradox with the red Queens race theory but it does fit.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You know I've never heard anybody compare the optimization paradox with the red Queens race theory but it does fit.

Yeah. Oblivion (the TES game) crystalized it for me--if you didn't level up properly (which was obnoxious and anti-intuitive), the monsters would out-scale you and you were screwed. But it's been reinforced multiple times in the TTRPG context.

It's why "balance by buffs only" just doesn't work stably--it's an unstable positive feedback loop in resonance. Any errors (and errors will happen) will get magnified until everything falls apart.

[da newt]

I tend to approach these sorts of discussions (martial vs caster) more from the DM view point - when I'm running games at the higher levels (top of tier 2 - tier 3, tier 4 is very rare and not really my cup of tea), it's always the caster PC's that I worry about. It's pretty easy / simple to design / balance encounters with martials, but the full casters are the one's who are much more difficult to account for. In order to challenge them you have to create crazy antimagic, legendary saves, extra counterspellers, prohibit long rests, etc.

As for 'should' a martial PC MC for magic or stay single classed - it really all depends on how you define 'should.' If your only criteria is power / more options - then yeah, more spells known / available, more spell slots, higher level spells etc all of these are power / option adders. But that's not how everyone decides what they 'should' build.

Personally I prefer to have a smaller number of buttons to push, and then try to find the best / most creative way to use those fewer options. I don't like to play full casters as there are too many spells and spell slots for my taste. I also don't like to play PCs with only 1 or 2 things they are good at. I love a warlock, half caster, 1/3 caster, or MC. To each their own. Do what ever makes you happy.

Me - I wish all the full casters were like 3/4 casters in terms of spell progression / power level, and they had a bit more unlimited resources. I think that would really help with class balance / magic vs martial balance.

[Witty Username]

Agreed. That's the fundamental problem with (current) casters--they break the system expectations for monsters wide open. Not so much because of numbers (really, caster numbers aren't that much bigger than martial numbers at high levels), but because of
1) the ease of locking things down (looking at you, force cage and banish)
2) the ease of maintaining concentration
3) action economy (looking at you simulacrum + various summoning spells)


Not really,
They break encounters with unusually high outward scaling (going wide to use magic parlance). About 1-2 monster per character as the limit, it tends to be about right for all concerned. 3-4+, AoE abilities become a nessisty for speed of play and favors casters significantly.
Going tall in mtg terms, one powerful monster, it depends on the tier but, in tier 3 & 4, legendary resistance tends to overwhelmingly favor characters that are focued on consistent damage, which is mostly martials. Force walls and such more cut encounters into manageable chucks than are overpowered in of themselves, unless one is employing kill boxes (which aren't actually trivial to set up, and is a pretty specific form of play).

Playing within monster and encounter expectations tend to fit parity or favor martials.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not really,
They break encounters with unusually high outward scaling (going wide to use magic parlance). About 1-2 monster per character as the limit, it tends to be about right for all concerned. 3-4+, AoE abilities become a nessisty for speed of play and favors casters significantly.
Going tall in mtg terms, one powerful monster, it depends on the tier but, in tier 3 & 4, legendary resistance tends to overwhelmingly favor characters that are focued on consistent damage, which is mostly martials. Force walls and such more cut encounters into manageable chucks than are overpowered in of themselves, unless one is employing kill boxes (which aren't actually trivial to set up, and is a pretty specific form of play).

Playing within monster and encounter expectations tend to fit parity or favor martials.

I'm totally fine with casters being better at AoE than martials as long as casters aren't also better at single-target damage. Including via summoning.

And having to have every encounter be Legendary is a sign that something is broken. Those should be rare boss encounters, not an every-day diet. If you're routinely fighting Legendary creatures, you're not actually using the system as designed. Those CR 12+ creatures? Yup, those are actually designed as arc bosses for lower-level campaigns. The median fight at level 20 is a bunch of CR 10s (by the guidelines at least).

Really, the breakage starts becoming apparent with a couple specific things:
1. Hard control (not nearly as much as in earlier editions). Being able to just absolutely remove creatures from play, with basically zero counter-play...unless the other side has a caster with counterspell/dispel magic. This plays into the action economy puzzle--removing a big creature to divide-and-conquer means action economy is now utterly borked in the players' favor.

2. Summons and other forms of action-economy breaking. Especially simulacrum, which is just not something that should ever have existed. Getting a second PC to play is, was, and always will be busted. Even if they're weak.

3. Being able to remove their limitations easily. Spells, feats, and multiclassing that let them be within epsilon as tanky as a martial while still being a full caster. The fact that breaking concentration without outright hard control (incapacitation, which is really hard anyway) is basically impossible for any optimized caster. Etc. This gets worse when you have tricks to share concentration (or start handwaving concentration).

But all in all, most of the combat breakage comes from a small handful of spells and features. There's a lot of worldbuilding breaking that happens with high-tier spells, but that's a separate matter. And giving everyone things on that scale just makes settings go all superhero (aka incoherent messes) real fast.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm totally fine with casters being better at AoE than martials as long as casters aren't also better at single-target damage. Including via summoning.
I am okay with this idea as well, however the fantasy of a warrior fighting multiple goons is not done well in D&D either. You're going to focus fire, you're not going to parry attacks, you're just going to get mobbed and have to deal with each guy one at a time.

Sucks.

The ability to strike more than one enemy at a time is reserved for high level subclass features, and it prevents striking any of them more than once, heaven forbid.

[stoutstien]

I am okay with this idea as well, however the fantasy of a warrior fighting multiple goons is not done well in D&D either. You're going to focus fire, you're not going to parry attacks, you're just going to get mobbed and have to deal with each guy one at a time.

Sucks.

The ability to strike more than one enemy at a time is reserved for high level subclass features, and it prevents striking any of them more than once, heaven forbid.

A weirdly effective homebrew is to make it so OAs do not require an action for fighters, barbs, and rogues and use morale checks of some sort to not run away from the guy misting your buddies. Makes them uniquely apt at handling those moderately tough groups that are usually hard to AOE nor do you want to trade blows for a long time.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I am okay with this idea as well, however the fantasy of a warrior fighting multiple goons is not done well in D&D either. You're going to focus fire, you're not going to parry attacks, you're just going to get mobbed and have to deal with each guy one at a time.

Sucks.

The ability to strike more than one enemy at a time is reserved for high level subclass features, and it prevents striking any of them more than once, heaven forbid.

Sure. When I say "martials aren't as good at aoe as casters", I don't mean "martials shouldn't be able to hit more than one at a time." It shouldn't be binary. On a hypothetical 1-10 scale, casters might be a 7 and martials a 5. And then reverse positions for single target.

And that's speaking generally--both those measurements are distributions, not points.

[Skrum]

I am okay with this idea as well, however the fantasy of a warrior fighting multiple goons is not done well in D&D either. You're going to focus fire, you're not going to parry attacks, you're just going to get mobbed and have to deal with each guy one at a time.

Sucks.

The ability to strike more than one enemy at a time is reserved for high level subclass features, and it prevents striking any of them more than once, heaven forbid.

It doesn't totally solve the problem, but the alternative cleaving rules are pretty fun. I changed them slightly too so they work more intuitively - if you deal damage to a creature with an attack that exceeds their maximum hit points, you can "continue" the attack against an adjacent/inline foe. Compare the same attack roll to the next creature's AC, and if it's a hit, the remainder of the damage is applied to them. Secondary attacks can also cleave, if they meet the requirements.

Example, if I'm explaining this badly: 3 goblins are attacking a fighter. The fighter attacks the first goblin using GWM, dealing 28 damage. This is more than the goblin's max hp of 7, so the attack cleaves and continues on to the next goblin. The attack roll of 19 is enough to hit it, so that goblin is hit and takes 21 damage (28 - 7). 21 is more than the goblin's max of 7, so the attack cleaves again. The third goblin is hit, taking 14 damage and also expires.

It doesn't help against even moderate enemies with like 30 hp or more, but it does allow you to throw very weak enemies at the party and create the classic "cutting down legions of enemies" scene.

[diplomancer]

Thinking aloud a bit more on this issue of balancing classes throughout the day; this is all very speculative, and I'm not making any positive claims.

Once the dynamic gets established in a particular table that the party will rest once the Long Rest classes run out of resources, even if it was after a very short adventuring day, something like Gresham's Law applies, and the "bad money drives out the good", so to speak, by which I mean that, on these tables, people will tend to focus more and more on the classes with stronger resource options and weaker at-will options, maybe to the point of giving up entirely on the classes that have better at-will options, maybe still keeping them for nostalgia sake, but feeling a great pressure to also get Long Rest recovearable powerful resources, to at least try to catch-up to the classes with weaker at-wills.

If by the end of this process, basically all the classes in the playgroup follow the same design structure (which, in D&D, basically means "everyone is playing a Long Rest full caster"), balance is finally achieved, but at the cost of eliminating several classes from play, so that D&D (5MAD Variant) ends up a playable and, for those who like that playstyle, a fun game system; but a poorer one, losing more than half of its classes. In my own opinion, it also feels a bit shallow, because I don't need to evaluate how deadly an encounter is to decide how best to use my resources. I just have to use my best resources as best as possible to the situation at hand, with very little concern of saving it for later. There is very little uncertainty. And I find uncertainty interesting.


And that's how we get threads like this, that conclude martials need to multiclass after 5.

[Snails]

I find it interesting that a number of posters have pointed out that there are reasons why the DM might choose to walk his style towards the 15 minute day, without encouragement from the players.

In the 3e era, we often talked about players pushing in this direction, especially when buffs are powerful and players perceive they are playing Red Queen with the DM. But even without those dynamics driven by the players, a DM who like "memorable" combats might be inclined towards focusing on one big combat for the evening of gaming. Sure, there may be other combats, but they may be little unimportant fights that lend flavor to the locale.

One of the DMs in my gaming group has this tendency. As a result, for his campaigns, I strongly lean towards playing full casters or perhaps a paladin -- I want a PC who has the flexibility that comes from spells and/or the nova potential that comes from spell slots. (Such is exacerbated by the DM liking to run his world magic item lean, so the lack of spells for a PC is strongly felt.)

For such a situation, the incentive to multiclass non-spellcasters is huge. Delaying the 8th level ASI looks like a small price to pay.

[Skrum]

Thinking aloud a bit more on this issue of balancing classes throughout the day; this is all very speculative, and I'm not making any positive claims.

Once the dynamic gets established in a particular table that the party will rest once the Long Rest classes run out of resources, even if it was after a very short adventuring day, something like Gresham's Law applies, and the "bad money drives out the good", so to speak, by which I mean that, on these tables, people will tend to focus more and more on the classes with stronger resource options and weaker at-will options, maybe to the point of giving up entirely on the classes that have better at-will options, maybe still keeping them for nostalgia sake, but feeling a great pressure to also get Long Rest recovearable powerful resources, to at least try to catch-up to the classes with weaker at-wills.

If by the end of this process, basically all the classes in the playgroup follow the same design structure (which, in D&D, basically means "everyone is playing a Long Rest full caster"), balance is finally achieved, but at the cost of eliminating several classes from play, so that D&D (5MAD Variant) ends up a playable and, for those who like that playstyle, a fun game system; but a poorer one, losing more than half of its classes. In my own opinion, it also feels a bit shallow, because I don't need to evaluate how deadly an encounter is to decide how best to use my resources. I just have to use my best resources as best as possible to the situation at hand, with very little concern of saving it for later. There is very little uncertainty. And I find uncertainty interesting.


And that's how we get threads like this, that conclude martials need to multiclass after 5.


Well think about the classes

Long Rest Classes
Sorcerer
Wizard
Paladin
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Barbarian
Artificer
Bard

Short Rest Classes
Fighter
Warlock
Monk

"No Rest" Classes
Rogue

Subclasses can change this slightly obviously; Circle of the Moon pushes druid towards SR, while Eldritch Knight, Echo Warrior, Psi Warrior, Arcane Trickster, and Soul Blade push fighter and rogue towards long rest. Probably other examples too, but just off the top of my head. And every class becomes a long rest class when they are out of hit points and out of hit dice.

Point being, it's likely you'll have 2 if not 3 LR characters in the party. Generally speaking, a LR power is better/more impactful than a SR power; that's one of the ways the game differentiates resources. So, if half or more of your party is running low on their LR powers, that represents a *huge* amount of total party power. On the flip side, if your 1 or 2 SR characters are out of their SR powers, that's a far less amount of total party power that's missing. Even if the party is split 2/2, the resources the two SR classes bring are nothing compared to the LR resources.

Put another way, there's far more ability for the party to push on when the fighter is out of maneuvers than when the wizard is out of spell slots. The party gets tied to a LR schedule because if the encounter is meaningful in any sense of the word, the fighter is not going to carry that encounter. But if the wizard is still solid, the fighter not having their action surge probably isn't going to matter one way or the other.

[Skrum]

One of the DMs in my gaming group has this tendency. As a result, for his campaigns, I strongly lean towards playing full casters or perhaps a paladin -- I want a PC who has the flexibility that comes from spells and/or the nova potential that comes from spell slots. (Such is exacerbated by the DM liking to run his world magic item lean, so the lack of spells for a PC is strongly felt.)

For such a situation, the incentive to multiclass non-spellcasters is huge. Delaying the 8th level ASI looks like a small price to pay.

Eish. That's rough. My group has actually really helped martials by being very lenient with items - there's a list of "standard" items like bag of holding, +1 weapons, rod of the pact keeper, etc., that players can craft, and we also have at this point well over 100 custom items that DM's have made and rewarded as loot. Martials generally get a +d4/d6 weapon within their first 10 or so games. These factors have helped boost martial effectiveness quite a bit, but even with that there's just no replacing the pure flexibility of spells, particularly on defense.

If we weren't handing out items like that, the situation would be far worse.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm curious if this is kinda a hard fork--the options seem to be

1. fully homogenize the classes as to resources/expenditure. Not only LR vs SR, but also how much they can burn at any one time. Because the one-encounter day hits different LR classes differently--barbarians vs paladins, for example.
2. say "if you don't follow the guidelines, you're SoL as far as balance goes."
3. Accept significant imbalance

None of those are particularly good options IMO...

[Trask]

I don't think the 5MWD can ever be fixed in 5e without significant rewrites to the system, and maybe the butchering of a few sacred cows. That's not a very attractive option either. Ultimately it rests with the DM, who has the power to control many aspects of the adventure, including where resting is possible, and how "deep" in the dungeon (or whatever they're doing) the party is (that is until someone gets Leomund's Tiny Hut).

Personally I've tried many things, because this is a real problem for me, but some things I've done have made it less of one. Each in separate campaigns. Note that I tend to prefer long adventuring days in the first place.

1. I've tried "Gritty Realism", it worked OK but 1 week is just too much for me.

2. I've had Long Rests not automatically recover all spells, but the caster can recover spell slots of a total amount equal to his level. This worked well, especially paired with Slow Natural Healing. I would do it again, but (of course) caster players HATED it.

3. Shifting every class to Long Rests (and just not allowing Warlock, although with the new UA Warlock thats not really necessary anymore). This is kind of a feelbad option, and DOESNT fix 5MWD but it does at least make everyone more "even". I don't like it, it wreaks some balance havoc on the system and some classes just break.

4. Just saying "No you can't long rest here". Making specific rules that it needs to be a safe place, that a Long Rest isn't just sleep, its like going back to base. And also banning Leomund's Tiny Hut and Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and whatnot. This one ends up being the most acceptable to everyone, but it still creates this annoying feeling where once casters are at half spell slots or Barbarians are at 1 rage after blowing it every single time they fight, they just poke everyone saying "LongrestLongrestLongrestLongrest". Including me.

5. I even once, as sort of thought exercise and proof of concept, playing a short campaign with just the "short rest classes" and the Cleric redesigned with Pact Magic AND Paladin's Lay on Hands, and no healing spells below 6th level. That was actually pretty cool, but obviously its pretty much a hack and needs a lot of work.


In that way I'm really pessimistic that this can ever be a solved problem, and will continue to plague table for years to come. BUT it definitely can be mitigated with DM intervention and a few easy houserules. LR classes may complain, but balance IS better. I've seen it. But it will certainly NEVER happen as long as 5MWD's exist, which is to say as long as WOTC own D&D probably.

[Snails]

Rather than do open heart surgery on the system, I would accept there is a difference about SR classes. The solution I would propose is to shovel defensive boosts on the classes in need of a helping hand as they get into the "dull" levels. A grab bag of defensive bumps generally do not stack in a way that is problem at the table, while being something most players appreciate, especially the casual players.

For example, I would be happy to hand out additional Save proficiencies to the Fighter and Barbarian as they climb levels. For me, it just fits the "these guys are tough heroes" idea. Nobody in their right mind is going to say "Oh, noes, how dare the Cha 10 fighter get Cha save proficiency! What is the BBEG going to do?"

[diplomancer]

Well think about the classes

Long Rest Classes
Sorcerer
Wizard
Paladin
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Barbarian
Artificer
Bard

Short Rest Classes
Fighter
Warlock
Monk

"No Rest" Classes
Rogue

Subclasses can change this slightly obviously; Circle of the Moon pushes druid towards SR, while Eldritch Knight, Echo Warrior, Psi Warrior, Arcane Trickster, and Soul Blade push fighter and rogue towards long rest. Probably other examples too, but just off the top of my head. And every class becomes a long rest class when they are out of hit points and out of hit dice.

Point being, it's likely you'll have 2 if not 3 LR characters in the party. Generally speaking, a LR power is better/more impactful than a SR power; that's one of the ways the game differentiates resources. So, if half or more of your party is running low on their LR powers, that represents a *huge* amount of total party power. On the flip side, if your 1 or 2 SR characters are out of their SR powers, that's a far less amount of total party power that's missing. Even if the party is split 2/2, the resources the two SR classes bring are nothing compared to the LR resources.

Put another way, there's far more ability for the party to push on when the fighter is out of maneuvers than when the wizard is out of spell slots. The party gets tied to a LR schedule because if the encounter is meaningful in any sense of the word, the fighter is not going to carry that encounter. But if the wizard is still solid, the fighter not having their action surge probably isn't going to matter one way or the other.

Yes, but why is it that the Wizard is out of spell slots? Maybe because he's darn using his spell slots as a sailor spends money at the port? It's either that or DM has designed a combat which is so deadly that requires the wizard to use all his power, I.e, a combat wildly beyond the guidelines of the game. He may think he's doing it because he wants to challenge the players. What he is doing is actually to force all the players into the classes that don't have good at-will options... which doesn't matter in the end because every round of combat of the day they can spend a Long Rest resource, there are so few rounds.

You see, it's not as simple as looking at who has LR resources and who doesn't. You have to look at their at-will. Paladins, Ranger, and Barbarians have some resources that recover on short rests, true. But who you'd rather be: a Wizard with no slots left and no ongoing magical effects except perhaps for Mage Armor, or a Barbarian with no rages, or even a Paladin or Ranger also without slots? I think this is one question where the answer of D&D players would be unanimous. The Wizard is worse-off than these other classes.

Why? Because the other classes' at-will is better, as are their passive defences, and, to compensate, a proportionally greater amount of the Wizard's power comes from their Long Rest resources.. Now, Paladin is a bit of a special case, because he can spend his resources at a prodigious rate if he wants to, and thus can have fun spending all their resources in one big fight while still using his good at-will action. This is true even though he has more staying power, once he runs out, than the full casters.

But this is not how the Ranger or the Barbarian were balanced at all. So as a matter of fact, basically all Martial classes are hosed in a short adventuring day, not just those without Long Rest resources, simply because they don't rely so much on their Long Rest resources for their class power.

If instead of looking at resources recovery, you look at classes with the division of "good at-will" and "bad at-will", it looks more like this:

"Good at-will"
Fighters
Rogues
Paladins
Rangers
Monks
Barbarians
(Warlocks?)
(Artificers?)

"Bad at-will"
Bard
Cleric
Druid
Wizard
Sorcerer.
(This is a crude simplification, and a conjecture about the intent of game design; please don't bring up that one wizard build optimized for at-will damage that you may have heard of somewhere.)

So that when you put your thumb on the scale so that there are less rounds throughout the adventuring day when classes have to fall back on their at-will options, you're schewing class-balance in a way that favours "bad at-will" classes (which, in D&D how it's been traditionally structured, means casters). In the same way that the adventuring table where the DM decides to challenge the players by making the adventuring day extra long, those classes with bad at-will feel underpowered.

Tanarii has stated in another thread that this is indeed his experience, and that when he goes beyond the adventuring day (which requires at least two short rests to even be possible to achieve, even when there aren't classes with significant short rest recovery), full casters feel weak. Whether this weakness is absolute (I.e, they are actually outputting less than the other classes) or relative (I.e, they are not outputting more than other classes, as they are used to), I don't know.


I'm curious if this is kinda a hard fork--the options seem to be

1. fully homogenize the classes as to resources/expenditure. Not only LR vs SR, but also how much they can burn at any one time. Because the one-encounter day hits different LR classes differently--barbarians vs paladins, for example.
2. say "if you don't follow the guidelines, you're SoL as far as balance goes."
3. Accept significant imbalance

None of those are particularly good options IMO...

Yeah; 2 is the "least bad". I think the best solution to push people towards actually following the guidelines is to try to make combats faster, so people don't end up thinking that their real-life time can only afford one combat per session. Or what some people have suggested, to turn most of the more powerful long-rest resources into short-rest resources, at an appropriate conversion rate. At first I thought that was radical, but I understand better what they are trying to achive; now you can't have the extra super ultra deadly combats that require all or most of the Long Rest resources, or the party will die. But you CAN have a tough combat that will consume all your Short Rest resources and even leaving you have to use your at-will options instead.

[Skrum]

- snip. -

Ok so I don't disagree with what you're saying, or at least, I understand what you're getting at, mechanics-wise. But I just can't agree that it's actually a good solution.

Getting reduced to at-will powers sucks lol. "Let's grind the characters down so far via attrition they are forced to use at will powers to survive but they probably will cause the encounter is going to be easy" sounds like a total drag. If the game was advertised as like a gritty realism or grindy dungeon, I could see getting into it, but as a general way to play the game, no thank you. I want to play my character. When I'm DM'ing, I want to make sure the players actually get to use their sheet.

=======================

Just a random thought on caster/martial balance, if I were to totally shake things up, I would probably take most/all of the defensive-type and buffing spells off the spell lists. I'd then use those spells' basic mechanics to give martials "maneuvers" that approximate those spells, and are usable a similar amount of time as like a half caster or something.

Everyone is on a LR schedule, and there's a clear delineation between casters and martials. Casters have incredible crowd control, AoE, and debuffs but are very fragile. They NEED the martials to protect them. And the martials can, because they have excellent hit points, AC, a bevy of defensive options, and good single-target damage.

[Witty Username]

And having to have every encounter be Legendary is a sign that something is broken. Those should be rare boss encounters, not an every-day diet. If you're routinely fighting Legendary creatures, you're not actually using the system as designed. Those CR 12+ creatures? Yup, those are actually designed as arc bosses for lower-level campaigns. The median fight at level 20 is a bunch of CR 10s (by the guidelines at least).


About 1-2 per person, CR 10, for level 20, depending on the size of the party x<=3 about 2 per person, x>3 closer to 1 per person. That would put it in the realm of hard.

So the argument is that summons and force walls trivialize an encounter like this?
But martials of 20th level can still comfortably (challenging but possible) handle this (no feats or multiclassing)?

Looking over the MM CR 10 monsters (from my DMG because I hate these books), we have:
-aboleth (I may be glad that alot of casters are proficient in wis saves, but a half doezen of these seem dangerous even with a LMD(simulacrum, but Marvel)
- death slaad (hm, a rude DM could do a kill box with these and a mind flayer archanist)
- Deva, sure, these are supporty and magic resistance so summons and walls are probably more effective than the norm
- guardian naga, hold person is on that list, marial team 6 is gonna die, casters are probably still going to have issues with the high poison damage and banishments
- stone golem (magic weapons check, slow stings the action economy for everyone)
- Yochlol (that's a name, at will web, oh and dominate person, no legendary or lair actions so not a bad as Aboleth, still seems dangerous)
- dragons (young red & young gold: that is a lot of garunteed damage from the breath weapons)

From this list, all of these monsters all seem pretty dangerous (even with summons and walls in play). And have alot of things that would be issues for martials.

This doesn't feel like a ringing endorsement of casters are blatantly overpowered and martials are fine with dead levels in Tier 3, this feels like these are all dangerous encounters, for casters, manageable. As for martials, taking optimized feats and favorable multiclasses to avoid subpar levels seems like a pretty fair decision that keeps them inside system expectations.

It seems like the game is balanced around having high level spell type effects to reduce load of hard and deadly encounters, and martials are lacking in tools and notably progression for higher level encounter expectations.

[Amnestic]

Ok so I don't disagree with what you're saying, or at least, I understand what you're getting at, mechanics-wise. But I just can't agree that it's actually a good solution.

Getting reduced to at-will powers sucks lol. "Let's grind the characters down so far via attrition they are forced to use at will powers to survive but they probably will cause the encounter is going to be easy" sounds like a total drag.

It's not a grind, it's a choice; you can choose to blow all your spells in fight 1, or martial (heheheh) them out over time, weaving cantrips between your big spells. Clerics are the model for this really, since they pop a concentration spell (eg. bless, spirit guardians) and then go to town either with cantrips or smacking. Maybe weave in a spiritual weapon if they're feeling particularly spicy. Ditto for druids, who drop heat metal or flaming sphere or whatever, and then cantrip it up (or wild shape and bite). It's not all that different from a warlock playstyle, they just have more backup spell slots at the cost of no invocations+weaker cantrips.

What I'm saying is that wizards/sorcs are bad because they get too many non-concentration spells.

Ergo: Fireball costs Concentration now.

[diplomancer]

Ok so I don't disagree with what you're saying, or at least, I understand what you're getting at, mechanics-wise. But I just can't agree that it's actually a good solution.

Getting reduced to at-will powers sucks lol. "Let's grind the characters down so far via attrition they are forced to use at will powers to survive but they probably will cause the encounter is going to be easy" sounds like a total drag. If the game was advertised as like a gritty realism or grindy dungeon, I could see getting into it, but as a general way to play the game, no thank you. I want to play my character. When I'm DM'ing, I want to make sure the players actually get to use their sheet.

So, you and your group have a particular play preferences, and that's alright as long as everyone's having fun, even if this play preference unbalances the classes, but you do have to be aware that this unbalance is not in the game itself, it's a consequence of your play preference (I also think your OP is a bit of evidence that "not all is well", since people in your group who'd like to play Martials feel strong pressure to multiclass into casters, i.e, they can't really play the character they'd prefer to).

I do prefer playing casters (or half-casters). Not because they are more powerful (in my usual tables, they're not, and they're rarely "full adventuring days", combat encounters tend to be about 4-5/LR, maybe one or, in special days, 2, of them being deadly) but because evaluating the danger of an encounter and choosing to output the most cost-efficient way of dealing with it is a large part of the fun for me. Paladins (a strong runner for my favourite class) are specially good at this. Regular encounter? You can probably get by with at-will, maybe casting one Bless if you can't reach the enemy on the first round. Hard Encounter? Couple of 1st-level smites might be in order. Super deadly encounter? Smite away time.



Just a random thought on caster/martial balance, if I were to totally shake things up, I would probably take most/all of the defensive-type and buffing spells off the spell lists. I'd then use those spells' basic mechanics to give martials "maneuvers" that approximate those spells, and are usable a similar amount of time as like a half caster or something.

Everyone is on a LR schedule, and there's a clear delineation between casters and martials. Casters have incredible crowd control, AoE, and debuffs but are very fragile. They NEED the martials to protect them. And the martials can, because they have excellent hit points, AC, a bevy of defensive options, and good single-target damage.

That's an interesting idea.


It's not a grind, it's a choice; you can choose to blow all your spells in fight 1, or martial (heheheh) them out over time, weaving cantrips between your big spells. Clerics are the model for this really, since they pop a concentration spell (eg. bless, spirit guardians) and then go to town either with cantrips or smacking. Maybe weave in a spiritual weapon if they're feeling particularly spicy. Ditto for druids, who drop heat metal or flaming sphere or whatever, and then cantrip it up (or wild shape and bite).

Exactly. The playstyle is not "Blow all your resources then spend the rest of the day using cantrips", that would indeed be terribly boring, it's "make good use of your resources, by usually casting a good concentration spell in the first round, then judiciously deciding whether more power is still needed for this particular combat, or, if not, scaling back on your power and using mostly your at-will to contribute, while letting the better at-will classes do their thing".

Warlocks don't get much the option of "deciding whether more power is still needed for this particular combat" (though sometimes they can, in an emergency, or in a particularly long and deadly combat), which is why they were designed with a much better at-will than other casters (though usually behind the martials).


It's not all that different from a warlock playstyle, they just have more backup spell slots at the cost of no invocations+weaker cantrips.

Exactly. Which is why I disagree with those who say Warlocks are worse than full casters. In fact, they don't play that differently from a full caster in a well designed adventuring day. Full casters have more flexibility in adjusting their power expenditure in a particular combat, but "big spell+good cantrips" is a very powerful contribution already. It only feels weak when the Long Rest fullcaster goes big spell (Shield reaction)+ big spell (Shield reaction)+ big spell (Shield reaction) "uff, I'm tapped out. Can we have a Long Rest?".


What I'm saying is that wizards/sorcs are bad because they get too many non-concentration spells.

Ergo: Fireball costs Concentration now.

Brilliant.

[Sneak Dog]

Thinking aloud a bit more on this issue of balancing classes throughout the day; this is all very speculative, and I'm not making any positive claims.

Once the dynamic gets established in a particular table that the party will rest once the Long Rest classes run out of resources, even if it was after a very short adventuring day, something like Gresham's Law applies, and the "bad money drives out the good", so to speak, by which I mean that, on these tables, people will tend to focus more and more on the classes with stronger resource options and weaker at-will options, maybe to the point of giving up entirely on the classes that have better at-will options, maybe still keeping them for nostalgia sake, but feeling a great pressure to also get Long Rest recovearable powerful resources, to at least try to catch-up to the classes with weaker at-wills.

If by the end of this process, basically all the classes in the playgroup follow the same design structure (which, in D&D, basically means "everyone is playing a Long Rest full caster"), balance is finally achieved, but at the cost of eliminating several classes from play, so that D&D (5MAD Variant) ends up a playable and, for those who like that playstyle, a fun game system; but a poorer one, losing more than half of its classes. In my own opinion, it also feels a bit shallow, because I don't need to evaluate how deadly an encounter is to decide how best to use my resources. I just have to use my best resources as best as possible to the situation at hand, with very little concern of saving it for later. There is very little uncertainty. And I find uncertainty interesting.


And that's how we get threads like this, that conclude martials need to multiclass after 5.

There is an argument here that the default adventuring day is not an intuitive one. I suspect GMs tend to adjust it not because of combat/resource balance reasons, but for pacing and enjoyment reasons. Easy combats that drain some hp don't feel exciting, having to fit in a lot of combat each adventuring day can stretch disbelief and combat can just be too slow to fit that many in an adventure that also should feature some slower encounters. Combined with encounters that drain resources being generally combat encounters and I don't think the DMG has great guidelines for non-trap non-combat encounters, this dynamic may have rooted from a variety of places.

Then there's also that 'weak' monsters of CR-X get harder and harder to kill as HP goes up linearly, martials having nearly no non-combat features and last but not least, martials being not too great in long adventuring days themselves due to their hit points running out and being unable to nova a big threat to mitigate this.

Things are complex. Personally I'd be a lot happier if martials got cool features on par with spells at higher levels though and calling the cost their lack of versatility. A barbarian subclass might get at-will fly, but a wizard can make anyone fly by spending a spell slot or they can prepare an entirely different utility spell because flight probably won't be useful this day.


I'm curious if this is kinda a hard fork--the options seem to be

1. fully homogenize the classes as to resources/expenditure. Not only LR vs SR, but also how much they can burn at any one time. Because the one-encounter day hits different LR classes differently--barbarians vs paladins, for example.
2. say "if you don't follow the guidelines, you're SoL as far as balance goes."
3. Accept significant imbalance

None of those are particularly good options IMO...

Personally I'd be in favour of shortening the default adventuring day first and seeing where that goes balance-wise. Put it at like a medium, two hard and a deadly encounter. That's a system redesign, but so is option 1.

[diplomancer]

There is an argument here that the default adventuring day is not an intuitive one. I suspect GMs tend to adjust it not because of combat/resource balance reasons, but for pacing and enjoyment reasons. Easy combats that drain some hp don't feel exciting, having to fit in a lot of combat each adventuring day can stretch disbelief and combat can just be too slow to fit that many in an adventure that also should feature some slower encounters. Combined with encounters that drain resources being generally combat encounters and I don't think the DMG has great guidelines for non-trap non-combat encounters, this dynamic may have rooted from a variety of places.

Then there's also that 'weak' monsters of CR-X get harder and harder to kill as HP goes up linearly, martials having nearly no non-combat features and last but not least, martials being not too great in long adventuring days themselves due to their hit points running out and being unable to nova a big threat to mitigate this.

Things are complex. Personally I'd be a lot happier if martials got cool features on par with spells at higher levels though and calling the cost their lack of versatility. A barbarian subclass might get at-will fly, but a wizard can make anyone fly by spending a spell slot or they can prepare an entirely different utility spell because flight probably won't be useful this day.



Personally I'd be in favour of shortening the default adventuring day first and seeing where that goes balance-wise. Put it at like a medium, two hard and a deadly encounter. That's a system redesign, but so is option 1.

It's important to remember here that "the adventuring day" does not mean, necessarily, 6-8 medium/hard encounters. It can be 3 deadly encounters, with one short rest between each of them. That is also an adventuring day in accordance with the guidelines we have. The math works out well enough (i.e, 3 deadly encounters is about the same as the daily XP budget), and having one short rest between each encounter fulfills the "two short rests, the first after about 1/3 of the day, the second after about 2/3 of the day" guideline)

[da newt]

"I do prefer playing casters (or half-casters). Not because they are more powerful (in my usual tables, they're not, and they're rarely "full adventuring days", combat encounters tend to be about 4-5/LR, maybe one or, in special days, 2, of them being deadly) but because evaluating the danger of an encounter and choosing to output the most cost-efficient way of dealing with it is a large part of the fun for me. Paladins are specially good at this. Regular encounter? You can probably get by with at-will, maybe casting one Bless if you can't reach the enemy on the first round. Hard Encounter? Couple of 1st-level smites might be in order. Super deadly encounter? Smite away time."

This lines up well with my opinion on the matter - in order to keep classes balanced-ish, you (the DM) need to create adventures that (soft) force the casters to choose when to conserve resources and when to go ballistic, and create consequences for blowing all your resources early. Encounter short adventuring days exasperate the caster/martial issue.

IMO, full casters grow in power / resources too quickly - they outpace the growth of the other classes (I think of them like exponential growth vs linear growth for the martials). I think the simplest way to improve balance is to nerf their spell slot progression a bit (especially at the top end) reducing their long rest resources ~20%.

[Trask]

IMO, full casters grow in power / resources too quickly - they outpace the growth of the other classes (I think of them like exponential growth vs linear growth for the martials). I think the simplest way to improve balance is to nerf their spell slot progression a bit (especially at the top end) reducing their long rest resources ~20%.

Maybe keep them at one 5th level slot until 18th level, where they normally get their third 5th level slot, and never have them have more than one 6th and 7th level slot?

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's important to remember here that "the adventuring day" does not mean, necessarily, 6-8 medium/hard encounters. It can be 3 deadly encounters, with one short rest between each of them. That is also an adventuring day in accordance with the guidelines we have. The math works out well enough (i.e, 3 deadly encounters is about the same as the daily XP budget), and having one short rest between each encounter fulfills the "two short rests, the first after about 1/3 of the day, the second after about 2/3 of the day" guideline)

Yeah. There's a huge variation in number of encounters that meet the guidelines. What doesn't meet the guidelines except in very rare circumstances is one big solo encounter. At least without significant TPK risk (CR ~ level + lots). Which can be fine...as a very rare garnish.

There is also (less dense, but not zero) resource use out of combat. Every time the druid casts pass without trace, they've burnt a slot. Etc.

[diplomancer]

Yeah. There's a huge variation in number of encounters that meet the guidelines. What doesn't meet the guidelines except in very rare circumstances is one big solo encounter. At least without significant TPK risk (CR ~ level + lots). Which can be fine...as a very rare garnish.

There is also (less dense, but not zero) resource use out of combat. Every time the druid casts pass without trace, they've burnt a slot. Etc.

Yeah, but if they're bypassing the encounter with it or giving the party Surprise, it counts. (Which is a criticism of the particular spell you chose to make your point, not of your point itself, which is of course true)

[Witty Username]

Just a random thought on caster/martial balance, if I were to totally shake things up, I would probably take most/all of the defensive-type and buffing spells off the spell lists. I'd then use those spells' basic mechanics to give martials "maneuvers" that approximate those spells, and are usable a similar amount of time as like a half caster or something.


I think that would mean the removal of the support caster as an archetype. I don't mind martials getting more things, especially to fill out their higher levels, but generally most defensive spells and buffs are tools of support casters, there are a few, mirror image, fire shield, shield- shield should probably not exist generally, I could see fire shield effects moved to barbarian and mirror image is pretty similar flavor to echo knight. But say stuff like Bless, Aid, Invisibility and haste are things that people often use to support other characters, I think those spells should stay in the game, or other areas of the game should be redone to allow the support caster to remain playable.


Yeah. There's a huge variation in number of encounters that meet the guidelines. What doesn't meet the guidelines except in very rare circumstances is one big solo encounter. At least without significant TPK risk (CR ~ level + lots). Which can be fine...as a very rare garnish.

There is also (less dense, but not zero) resource use out of combat. Every time the druid casts pass without trace, they've burnt a slot. Etc.

It doesn't need to be a big solo encounter for specific dangerous effects to be in play at high levels.
Take say Adult white dragon (CR 13), 2 of those is a medium encounter at 20:
And we have legendary resistance and legendary actions.
These things simply become part of the game at higher levels outside of specific encounters.