Are spellcasters broken because a few spells are broken

[Skrum]

Specifically, are casters and spells so comprehensively overtuned that balancing them would require entirely remaking these classes (and most likely drastically reducing the size of spell lists), or...is it a case of a few "bad apples." And by bad apples I mean individual spells that are too strong.

For instance, what if the following changes were made:
- While you are concentrating on a summoning spell, you may only use cantrips
- Fireball was reduced to 6d6
- Hypnotic Pattern gave a save at the end of each round
- Spirit Guardians didn't create difficult terrain, and was reduced to 2d8 damage
- Shield only granted AC against the triggering attack

Would 5th and 6th level casters really be head and shoulders above everyone else? It seems to me, back of the napkin calculations, they'd be strong *but they'd have a lane.* That to me is the real problem of overtuned classes - they can make other players feel like the chump for not picking that class.

Capital letters here, metaphorically speaking, this is not to say that certain other classes don't also need a boost!! Particularly out of combat. This is not to say that tweaking a few spells is going to balance wizards to barbarians. I'm saying that maybe this is a case of the 80/20 rule: 80% of the issue is being caused by 20% of the problems. And a big chunk of that 20% is, maybe, a few well-known and fan-favorite spells.

[Hael]

Yes, a great deal of the problem are outlier spells. But its actually a very delicate balance, as if you are too overzealous in taking out the ‘outlier spells’ you end up massively overnerfing the whole class. It really wouldn’t take much.

It is also a fact that most spellcasters have many more bad spells in their books than useful spells, so you do have to be careful.

Also certain spells are necessary. For instance fireball is too strong relative to other blasting spells, but its barely ok for its level range relative to other damage options in the game, and quickly falls off. So thats an example of a spell where you would want to buff its competitors rather than nerfing that one spell.

On the other hand, something like simulacrum is clearly an outlier amongst summons, and should never have existed in that form in the first place..

[JNAProductions]

It’s not just power of one or two spells.
It’s that, class-depending, you can use a silver bullet spell too. Normally weak, but perfect for the situation.

I do think that nerfing outlier spells is a good starting point, though.

[Dork_Forge]

I wouldn't call them broken, I think the problem stems from a few things:

- The sheer number of spells means that they vary greatly in quality, sacred cows make this worse.
- New spells are probably the most consistent new content we get, often with not a lot of thought into their balance and with a nasty habit to migrate from settings they're presented in to the game as a whole.
- The game has frustratingly continued to move into the 'do it with spells' approach, which disproportionately favours having spell slots. For example, the new rune feat in Bigby's is just more spellcasting. Not only is that more boring and less work than making an actual set of runes to craft, PCs with slots get more out of it despite the fact that the flavour doesn't even match up.
- The poor foresight into how a large number of spells interact not only with each other, but specific features and the core rules as a whole creates a can of worms.

[Skrum]

For instance fireball is too strong relative to other blasting spells, but its barely ok for its level range relative to other damage options in the game, and quickly falls off. So thats an example of a spell where you would want to buff its competitors rather than nerfing that one spell.


I don't think I agree with this. Fireball is the best AoE option at 3rd level by far, and remains relevant until at least level 10 (the highest I've played). Yes there are others that can be as effective (or more so, depending on the situation), but fireball remains a 3rd level spell. That's a very strong fact in its favor - if I'm an 9th level sorcerer, I'd love to cast Hold Monster with my 5th, Banish and Polymorph with my 4th, and I can still blast with fireball with my 3rds. Bounded accuracy means a pack of weaker enemies aren't ever going out of style - meaning the situations where fireball shines are going to continue to come up.

Also - fireball does damage. And only damage. Yes it does it in an area, something martial classes largely can't do, but it's doing what other classes do in a pretty direct way. Buffing other blasting spells to be as strong as fireball is, and you're entirely ignoring the Lane.

[LudicSavant]

- Spirit Guardians didn't create difficult terrain, and was reduced to 2d8 damage

Side note: Spirit Guardians doesn't create difficult terrain. It is worded in a uniquely odd way, such that it is actually considerably weirder than that (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/84246/how-does-spirit-guardians-impact-available-movement-for-affected-creatures). Also, stacks with difficult terrain.

[Kane0]

You could hammer down the pokey nails, bht that doesnt fix the fact that new nails are being put in and arent hammered in lime the others, and the person walking around can just find some other nails to complain about.

[Tanarii]

Spellcasters aren't broken, except for Moon Druids in Tier 1. Even with PHB spells like Shield or Hypnotic Pattern.

There are a few things that can break Spellcasters, if you allow them in the game: Multiclassing dips for Medium Armor and Shield for Wizard/Sorc/Warlock. Resilient (Con) Feat. Hexblades. 5 Minute Work Days.

[diplomancer]

Spellcasters aren't broken, except for Moon Druids in Tier 1. Even with PHB spells like Shield or Hypnotic Pattern.

There are a few things that can break Spellcasters, if you allow them in the game: Multiclassing dips for Medium Armor and Shield for Wizard/Sorc/Warlock. Resilient (Con) Feat. Hexblades. 5 Minute Work Days.

And a few others from the opposite side, perhaps? I mean the new Backgrounds/Races that can give Clerics the Shield spell.

[Corran]

It’s not just power of one or two spells.
It’s that, class-depending, you can use a silver bullet spell too. Normally weak, but perfect for the situation.

Examples?
I am asking, because I was thinking that I dont mind casters too much having a few op spells that can even win you encounters from time to time (a tame example being fireball when used against weak enemies bunched up together). My main issue is how they can step on the toes of martials because martials dont get a grand advantage on withstanding damage and on killing stuff (some more control would be nice too). So frankly, if I was given a nerf gun, I'd probably start from the cantrips. Then I'd go for defensive buffs and summoning spells. And only then I'd start looking at any other op stuff (eg forcecage, I might not even nerf it, and if I did, it might be to allow it work better for evokers -eg by giving it hp for non evokers, or to make choosing 7th level spells more interesting -especially for warlocks, who should probably get 2 mystic arcanum picks per spell level anyway).

I need more reasons than just preference or DM incentive to bring martials along adventures. So I dont mind too much if the caster has the out of combat utility or the occasional silver bullet, so long as there are enough encounters where I'll have to reduce the remaining hp or the disadvantaged enemy's hp to 0 while taking hits, but with martials being the kings of that.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'll reject the premise that 5th and 6th level casters are way ahead of anyone else. They're not ahead at all depending the kind of encounters and workday. The only way I can see them being way ahead is with 1-2 encounters/ LR in conditions that are favorable to the 3rd level AOE spells you listed. This also allows them to spam Shield (and other 1st level reaction spells) during those encounters. If people are consistently playing a game like that then they've created their own problem.

[Unoriginal]

I'll reject the premise that 5th and 6th level casters are way ahead of anyone else.

I second that.

[Tanarii]

And a few others from the opposite side, perhaps? I mean the new Backgrounds/Races that can give Clerics the Shield spell.
Not sure what you mean by opposite side, but Shield spell doesn't break Clerics as significantly as Resilient (Con), or a MC dip for MA/Shield does Arcane squishies (except Bard). It's very useful, just like on a EK. But not game breaking.

But yeah, generally speaking if someone allows any variant/optional rules, which includes all splat, without carefully vetting it first, I don't have any sympathy. Claiming that a base game + optional/variant rules + splat is broken in some way in like claiming that water is wet. Of course it is.

It's not like claims that 3e/3.5e base game classes were broken balance (they were) or 4e base game math was broke (it was). Base 5e spellcasters aren't particularly broken, outside maybe Tier 4 spell shenanigans like Simulacrum/Wish. (Edit: And of course, as I mentioned, Tier 1 Moon Druids.)

Unless we start talking about broken spells the other way, as in so weak they're either actually useless or so niche as to be effectively useless. Then there's several cantrips and plenty of low level spells.

[LudicSavant]

Unless we start talking about broken spells the other way, as in so weak they're either actually useless or so niche as to be effectively useless.

There are so many of these. Like Witch Bolt (very low damage, easily broken tether). Or Melf's Acid Arrow (let me put it this way; if it auto-hit? It might still be worse than upcast magic missile. It does not auto-hit). Or Find Traps (it doesn't detect itself).

[Skrum]

I agree - but I also think you're saying "if the DM is very diligent about encounter design and is aware of the ways in which the system breaks down, and most importantly, *actively works against common tendencies," then yes, casters are "balanced."

And that's the problem.
Example: the other night I was playing DND, and we were hired to clear out an old dungeon. In the very first encounter, the dice conspired to smash the crap out us. So, encounter over, we did the logical thing: we left the dungeon, long rested, and came back 10 real minutes later and continued. The DM rolled for some random encounters, the dice came out in our favor, and we essentially picked up exactly where we left off.

Yes yes I know: there should've been a time pressure. We shouldn't have been allowed to long rest. But that's exactly what the DM is working against. Are they supposed to *always* contrive to prevent players, and more importantly characters within the world who care if they die from doing the logical thing?

Frankly though, even if the DM manages rests "appropriately," the casters are still in far better position. An 8th level caster has enough spell slots to play through, I would say 2-4 tough combats. The weaker classes in comparison are EXTREMELY reliant on getting those short rests.

All this adds up to what I said at the top: for the classes to "balance," the DM needs to be aware of this and carefully calibrate and plan a rest schedule that favors monk, warlock, and fighter (and to a degree rogue). That to me isn't balanced at all.

[Unoriginal]

I agree - but I also think you're saying "if the DM is very diligent about encounter design and is aware of the ways in which the system breaks down, and most importantly, *actively works against common tendencies," then yes, casters are "balanced."

And that's the problem.
Example: the other night I was playing DND, and we were hired to clear out an old dungeon. In the very first encounter, the dice conspired to smash the crap out us. So, encounter over, we did the logical thing: we left the dungeon, long rested, and came back 10 real minutes later and continued. The DM rolled for some random encounters, the dice came out in our favor, and we essentially picked up exactly where we left off.

Yes yes I know: there should've been a time pressure. We shouldn't have been allowed to long rest. But that's exactly what the DM is working against. Are they supposed to *always* contrive to prevent players, and more importantly characters within the world who care if they die from doing the logical thing? .

Why are the PCs the only ones allowed to do the logical thing?

If you go in a dungeon, have a rough fight, then leave, the dungeon inhabitants should do the logical thing: get everyone in the faction on high alert, analyse the remains of the fight to discover everything they can about the PCs, prepare based on what they have discovered, and make sure the way they entered the first time cannot be breached in so easily. Or if the dungeon inhabitants are more of the "senseless violence" sort, they could send a retaliatory expedition against the closest community that *might* be involved in the dungeon trespass (or that they just wanted to see harmed and the adventurers gave them an excuse for it).

If the dungeon is just a bunch of non-sapient beasts roaming a mostly enclosed area, then sure, the PCs can leave and come back without any issue.

Otherwise, the dungeons defenders will react as logically as the PCs will act, more or less.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Fixing the outlier spells would help. I'm not as worried about fireball though. The big discrepancy starts showing up at higher levels and higher optimization. Of the sub-level-10 stuff, I think polymorph and shield are the big outliers (discarding things I don't play with like silvery barbs).

But to really make a significant difference, some other things would need to happen.

1. Fewer spell slots. If you want to have something balanced across fewer combats, you need much much fewer resources. How many fewer? Shrug.
2. Move a crap-ton of the utility spells "off list". Make them available somehow to everyone. Yes, this includes things like resurrection, flight, teleportation, divination, etc. Basically anything that doesn't have strict time limits (ie "need it now") and can be balanced in some other way.
3. Fix the remaining "broken" spells. My short list:
a) shield. Either make you have to pre-declare it before the attack is rolled, make it affect only one attack, make it a way smaller benefit, or make it not stack with any kind of physical armor or shield.
b) polymorph Make it cap at CR = spell level, not CR = character level. While turning someone into a Giant Ape is amusing the first time, it gets repetitive.
c) maybe hypnotic pattern. Give it a save at the end of each turn or a short duration.
d) simulacrum. Just remove it. It can't be balanced at all without making it crappy and worthless.
e) wish. Make it anyspell, remove all the other uses. Still very strong, no longer the only reasonable pick for your first 9th as an arcane caster.
f) forcecage. It should be breakable and vulnerable to regular things like dispel magic.

4. Fix it so you can't dip for armor trivially. Yes, that probably means fixing the wording by either saying "you can only cast <class> spells in armor that <class> gave you". So those cleric subclasses that give heavy armor? Great. You can cast cleric spells in heavy armor. But wizard spells can't be cast in any armor. Or maybe by changing how armor proficiency works.
5. Make concentration checks actually failable even at DC 10. Which means removing or fixing Res:Con and/or Warcaster, mostly. Make getting save proficiencies from your class a major perk of being a sorcerer, something the sorcerer does way better than the wizard. Oh wait, sorcerers are supposed to always be inferior at everything.

[Corran]

I agree - but I also think you're saying "if the DM is very diligent about encounter design and is aware of the ways in which the system breaks down, and most importantly, *actively works against common tendencies,"
Sounds like too much work if I "have to" do it every time and not just when it makes sense or when I just want to.


then yes, casters are "balanced."
Making classes balanced to each other is a little pointless, because ideally you have classes be different enough in which case direct comparisons (and thus achieving some kind of relative balance) are hard to make. Just make classes step less on each other toes and give everyone a reason to exist (the intuitive approach, if you dont want to nerf magic to just in-combat tricks, is to make martials better in combat, to the point that it's asking for trouble going into dungeons and the like if you dont have a martial with you; because you cannot have a clever trick or a perfect response to everything and because even when you do, you still need someone to be more effective at killing the remaining monsters).

[Brookshw]

b) polymorph Make it cap at CR = spell level, not CR = character level. While turning someone into a Giant Ape is amusing the first time, it gets repetitive.


Ignoring the others on your list for the moment, as far as Poly goes, get rid of the temp HP and I'd have no issue with it.

[LudicSavant]

I feel a bigger issue than Polymorph's power level is that it's unsatisfying. The list of good animals to pick is short to the point of getting repetitive, falls off after a few levels, and it's generally more about just having a generic HP brick (usually one that's less interesting that the character that was transformed into it) than doing exciting new things with your form.


Ignoring the others on your list for the moment, as far as Poly goes, get rid of the temp HP and I'd have no issue with it.

I too would like to see the focus of the spell (or at least, the ally-targeting version of it) be on something other than making an HP brick.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I feel a bigger issue than Polymorph's power level is that it's unsatisfying. The list of good animals to pick is short to the point of getting repetitive, falls off after a few levels, and it's generally more about just having a generic HP brick (usually one that's less interesting that the character that was transformed into it) than doing exciting new things with your form.

I too would like to see the focus of the spell (or at least, the ally-targeting version of it) be on something other than making an HP brick.

At least at lower levels, the extra damage of a giant ape is great, better than most non extreme optimization types. But I agree that it's mostly a repetitive thing--always the same thing.

But polymorph and friends have never worked well in D&D. They were prime culprits in 2e and 3e. Iconic, but very hard to balance, just like anything that gives access to monster books.

[LudicSavant]

very hard to balance, just like anything that gives access to monster books.

Eh. 5e Polymorph doesn't even offer many options compared to many other games, there just aren't that many high CR animals in this system. Devs balance this sort of thing all the time.

If anything, it's in a similar category to Animate Dead or Find Familiar where it's unbalanced despite a relatively small number of options for such an ability. Even Animate Objects has really poor balance, just between the different sizes of object.

Delving into monster books is fine, game devs have been making that sort of thing work for decades.

[Leon]

Spellcasters are broken because magic is broken. When they can for the counting metric of a spell slot alter reality in a vast number of ways with no cost, no risk or failure chance why would they be balanced. Its not something i ever see them fixing and will be a continuing reason as to why this game isn't as good as many people think it is. Luckily there is a wealth of games out there that do mange to balance their magic systems and are good for it.

[Tanarii]

As usual, a thread about casters being overpowered seems to come down to the 5MWD.

If the problem is the game is being used out of scope, then it's time for the DM to look at why that's the case. If they're not using some reasonable assumptions like the DMGs 15% chance of random events every 10 minutes or hour or creatures that behave in character when their lair is assaulted, and the DM doesn't want to start or those reasonable assumptions aren't appropriate for the campaign focus (Urban Intrigue, surprisingly safe wilderness exploration), then there are variant rules to cover exactly those scenarios.

Yes, the DM has to do some work if they're going to run a game of 5e in a way that's regularly out of scope that result in things such as 5MWDs. Just like they need to do some work before including variant rules like Multiclassing / Feats or Splat content. The base game works quite well. Casters aren't overpowered through at least low Tier 3, and some of them (arcane full casters) don't even start to catch up until mid-Tier 2.

[diplomancer]

I agree - but I also think you're saying "if the DM is very diligent about encounter design and is aware of the ways in which the system breaks down, and most importantly, *actively works against common tendencies," then yes, casters are "balanced."

And that's the problem.
Example: the other night I was playing DND, and we were hired to clear out an old dungeon. In the very first encounter, the dice conspired to smash the crap out us. So, encounter over, we did the logical thing: we left the dungeon, long rested, and came back 10 real minutes later and continued. The DM rolled for some random encounters, the dice came out in our favor, and we essentially picked up exactly where we left off.

Yes yes I know: there should've been a time pressure. We shouldn't have been allowed to long rest. But that's exactly what the DM is working against. Are they supposed to *always* contrive to prevent players, and more importantly characters within the world who care if they die from doing the logical thing?

Frankly though, even if the DM manages rests "appropriately," the casters are still in far better position. An 8th level caster has enough spell slots to play through, I would say 2-4 tough combats. The weaker classes in comparison are EXTREMELY reliant on getting those short rests.

All this adds up to what I said at the top: for the classes to "balance," the DM needs to be aware of this and carefully calibrate and plan a rest schedule that favors monk, warlock, and fighter (and to a degree rogue). That to me isn't balanced at all.

After the monsters of the very first encounter were killed, how did the rest of the monsters of the dungeon react to that knowledge, given their 24 hours preparation window to your next incursion? Really, unless you're talking about completely mindless monsters (and who was it that made the decision to only have mindless monsters in a Dungeon?), leaving a Dungeon after killing some of its inhabitants and coming back on the very next day should mean facing ALL the monsters of the dungeon in one encounter, in the place where it's most favourable for the monsters to ambush you.

[Corran]

A...leaving a Dungeon after killing some of its inhabitants and coming back on the very next day should mean facing ALL the monsters of the dungeon in one encounter...
Or none. Because they packed up their things and left. Depending on what your goal was this could be a good or a bad thing.

[diplomancer]

Or none. Because they packed up their things and left. Depending on what your goal was this could be a good or a bad thing.

Yeah, or that. What shouldn't happen is "ok, dungeon is exactly the same as before, please proceed to Long Rest after every single fight".

So, no, Long Resting after every single fight is not "the logical decision". It might be the necessary decision for survival, of course, but it may easily mean "sorry, you have not accomplished your goals for this mission". And there should be consequences for this failure. Maybe as small as loss of money and a reputation hit. Maybe as big as the end of the world.

[GeneralVryth]

The answer is it's a combination of:

1. A few broken spells. And many under-powered spells that contributes to sameyness. Though I am not sure if I think any of the spells in the OP are actually overpower. Maybe Hypnotic Pattern. In general the bad combat spells are AOE hard control with few counters. And simulacrum shouldn't exist, certainly not as is. Shield is one I see get brought up a lot, and it's meh... It's a great way to burn 1st level slots once you have higher level spells, but that's more because of a lack of use for those 1st level slots than shield being great. I mean really thinking about it, Shield cancels one attack for sure, and maybe a 1 or 2 more. It's a powerful situational heal. Could the AC bonus be reduced or restricted to only against 1 character? Maybe but that is a lot further down the list of issues I think.

2. Bad pacing. Casters win if there is a small number of encounters in a day AND they know there will only be a small number of encounters in a day. A caster that plays like a real person shouldn't be blowing everything in battle once things are under control they should be trying to save juice for an emergency.

3. Martials need better non-combat utility especially at higher levels. How to do this has always been a bit of a puzzle without some kind of meta mechanics or more involved social/favors system, at least while keeping psuedo-realistic nature of non-magic aspects. I don't like the 4e approach of separating out all utility magic and just giving it to everyone. That makes everyone magical, and changes the feel of the world. I would much rather see something more like a martial being able to call in a favor when in a given area to get something like a potion of flight, or a cleric that kind revive a friend as actual mechanic.

[Witty Username]

I think the fireball nerf might be strong enough to kill the blaster as a archetype. Damage spells already have issues with how they scale, and damage spells before it are aready kinda shaky in Tier 1 use.
Blasters currently exist partialy to having a strong Tier 2 and spells like fireball being strong enough to make up for the poor scaling into tier 3 that doesn't really end until meteor swarm.

If it was paired with some buffs to higher level damage spells, I could see it working, but as straight nerf the archetype starts dipping below usability.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Despite that I don't agree with the premise of the thread, I will throw out one spell for discussion that I think can be somewhat game-breaking in the right circumstances: Pass Without Trace. Why? It can allow a moderately stealthy party to basically become ghosts and get both good recon and surprise in a number of encounters because of the strength of the spell and the duration. So even if the table is playing with the recommended # of encounters, it's possible that a party can face 2-3 encounters in succession with big advantages. They can get good intel on their enemies. They can avoid encounters entirely at times. If they chose to fight they basically get a free round, and if it looks like a tough fight they can pre-buff as needed.
That's a lot for a 2nd level slot. I haven't seen any spell at tier 1 and early tier 2 that can impact multiple encounters to the benefit of the whole party the way PWT does.

[tokek]

Why are the PCs the only ones allowed to do the logical thing?

If you go in a dungeon, have a rough fight, then leave, the dungeon inhabitants should do the logical thing: get everyone in the faction on high alert, analyse the remains of the fight to discover everything they can about the PCs, prepare based on what they have discovered, and make sure the way they entered the first time cannot be breached in so easily. Or if the dungeon inhabitants are more of the "senseless violence" sort, they could send a retaliatory expedition against the closest community that *might* be involved in the dungeon trespass (or that they just wanted to see harmed and the adventurers gave them an excuse for it).

If the dungeon is just a bunch of non-sapient beasts roaming a mostly enclosed area, then sure, the PCs can leave and come back without any issue.

Otherwise, the dungeons defenders will react as logically as the PCs will act, more or less.

100 times this

If the party walks away and comes back a day later then I'm like


Rolls up sleeves. Gets out Tucker's Kobolds.

You can do it but expect consequences.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the fireball nerf might be strong enough to kill the blaster as a archetype. Damage spells already have issues with how they scale, and damage spells before it are aready kinda shaky in Tier 1 use.
Blasters currently exist partialy to having a strong Tier 2 and spells like fireball being strong enough to make up for the poor scaling into tier 3 that doesn't really end until meteor swarm.

If it was paired with some buffs to higher level damage spells, I could see it working, but as straight nerf the archetype starts dipping below usability.

Nerfing Fireball doesn't kill the archetype, spells as a baseline shouldn't be OP in any given niche because it's a Class-based game with other customisation factors. Scaling back the raw damage of Fireball (which would still be utterly massive with a stupid distance) wouldn't kill an archetype that has a lot of ways to increase the damage of that thing.

It also assumes that Fireball is the only thing keeping the blaster niche a viable thing, which... just isn't true.

[GeneralVryth]

Despite that I don't agree with the premise of the thread, I will throw out one spell for discussion that I think can be somewhat game-breaking in the right circumstances: Pass Without Trace. Why? It can allow a moderately stealthy party to basically become ghosts and get both good recon and surprise in a number of encounters because of the strength of the spell and the duration. So even if the table is playing with the recommended # of encounters, it's possible that a party can face 2-3 encounters in succession with big advantages. They can get good intel on their enemies. They can avoid encounters entirely at times. If they chose to fight they basically get a free round, and if it looks like a tough fight they can pre-buff as needed.
That's a lot for a 2nd level slot. I haven't seen any spell at tier 1 and early tier 2 that can impact multiple encounters to the benefit of the whole party the way PWT does.

That's a good call out. Pass Without Trace even more than Shield says F*** You to the math of the game. It's probably more powerful than any of Fireball, Shield, or many of the others called out in the thread.

Assuming I read this right, I also don't agree with the premise that spellcasters are broken in the general case. But they are easier to abuse because of some abusive spells.

[tokek]

Despite that I don't agree with the premise of the thread, I will throw out one spell for discussion that I think can be somewhat game-breaking in the right circumstances: Pass Without Trace. Why? It can allow a moderately stealthy party to basically become ghosts and get both good recon and surprise in a number of encounters because of the strength of the spell and the duration. So even if the table is playing with the recommended # of encounters, it's possible that a party can face 2-3 encounters in succession with big advantages. They can get good intel on their enemies. They can avoid encounters entirely at times. If they chose to fight they basically get a free round, and if it looks like a tough fight they can pre-buff as needed.
That's a lot for a 2nd level slot. I haven't seen any spell at tier 1 and early tier 2 that can impact multiple encounters to the benefit of the whole party the way PWT does.

As I just said in another thread the PWT == Surprise thing relies on a couple of situational/dubious assumptions

Firstly it disregards the first part of the rule in question "The GM determines who might be surprised"

Stealth also requires obscurement to work. Medieval defensive or guard positions generally stripped out any sort of cover that could be used like that. There may be clever ways around it such as swimming around the moat and climbing up underneath the drawbridge but that requires other rolls that PWT does nothing to help with. PWT is however excellent at escaping, its almost an auto-win when using the chase rules and the party is the one being chased.

If there is cover then PWT will reliably grant hidden attacker advantage, if there is no cover it will do nothing. It will not grant surprise against anything that I as GM deem to be on guard and ready for trouble.

[GeneralVryth]

Nerfing Fireball doesn't kill the archetype, spells as a baseline shouldn't be OP in any given niche because it's a Class-based game with other customisation factors. Scaling back the raw damage of Fireball (which would still be utterly massive with a stupid distance) wouldn't kill an archetype that has a lot of ways to increase the damage of that thing.

It also assumes that Fireball is the only thing keeping the blaster niche a viable thing, which... just isn't true.

It would be interesting to find out how long it would take a Greatsword Barabarian, or Fighter to catch up to the damage of a Fireball that is followed by just Firebolt spam.

Assuming the main attribute values of 16:
Firebolt averages 11 damage multiplied by hit chance
Raging Barbarian 12*2 multiplied by hit chance
Fighter 10*2 multiplied by hit chance, plus an extra 10*2 multiplied by hit chance in the first round from Action Surge.

After 3 rounds the Barbarian is ahead by 39 damage multiplied by hit chance, while the Fighter is ahead by 47 multiplied by hit chance.

A Fireball averages only 28 damage, with half damage on a failed save so 42 multiplied failed save chance. And then you have to subtract the damage that Firebolt you are using Fireball in place of. So you need at least 2 targets for Fireball to come out ahead after 3 rounds And even then it's not a lot, and we aren't even touching on the myriad of other things that help DPS martials, like Reckless Attack, Superiority dice, or GWM. Not to mention, combat goes on 2 rounds longer and and even 3 targets likely isn't enough.

At level 6 you get 3 Fireballs a day, which nicely lines up with the number of Rages, and Action surges the others would have.

For 3 approaches all centered on doing damage that seems pretty comparable. Which supports the well known idea that caster damage is actually pretty and more spells need to be brought up near the Fireball level.

[Dork_Forge]

It would be interesting to find out how long it would take a Greatsword Barabarian, or Fighter to catch up to the damage of a Fireball that is followed by just Firebolt spam.

Assuming the main attribute values of 16:
Firebolt averages 11 damage multiplied by hit chance
Raging Barbarian 12*2 multiplied by hit chance
Fighter 10*2 multiplied by hit chance, plus an extra 10*2 multiplied by hit chance in the first round from Action Surge.

After 3 rounds the Barbarian is ahead by 39 damage multiplied by hit chance, while the Fighter is ahead by 47 multiplied by hit chance.

A Fireball averages only 28 damage, with half damage on a failed save so 42 multiplied failed save chance. And then you have to subtract the damage that Firebolt you are using Fireball in place of. So you need at least 2 targets for Fireball to come out ahead after 3 rounds And even then it's not a lot, and we aren't even touching on the myriad of other things that help DPS martials, like Reckless Attack, Superiority dice, or GWM. Not to mention, combat goes on 2 rounds longer and and even 3 targets likely isn't enough.

At level 6 you get 3 Fireballs a day, which nicely lines up with the number of Rages, and Action surges the others would have.

For 3 approaches all centered on doing damage that seems pretty comparable. Which supports the well known idea that caster damage is actually pretty and more spells need to be brought up near the Fireball level.

No, they shouldn't be elevated....

The entire point of the post you replied to was that 'being a blaster' is not 'I took this spell.'

Draconic Sorc adds Cha both to Fireball and Firebolt, for one example.

[Skrum]

Assuming I read this right, I also don't agree with the premise that spellcasters are broken in the general case. But they are easier to abuse because of some abusive spells.

The premise is exactly what you just said - casters aren't the problem per se, it's the existence of a handful of broken spells. The more games I play and the more different spellcasting characters who've chosen "known crazy-good spell + a few others that rarely come up," the more I think it's a spell problem.

On one hand I'm saying something trivial - spells are 95% of a what the fullcasters do, so obviously they are broken (or not) based on what spells do. But I think the problem is a little narrower than that - a few specific OP spells. And the implication is "identify those spells and change them as needed," rather than "entirely change the game from the ground up"

[Kane0]

In addition to how strong those spells are, also consider how often they can be used and if those spells are the only way for a PC to have those capabilities

[Pex]

Specifically, are casters and spells so comprehensively overtuned that balancing them would require entirely remaking these classes (and most likely drastically reducing the size of spell lists), or...is it a case of a few "bad apples." And by bad apples I mean individual spells that are too strong.

For instance, what if the following changes were made:
- While you are concentrating on a summoning spell, you may only use cantrips
- Fireball was reduced to 6d6
- Hypnotic Pattern gave a save at the end of each round
- Spirit Guardians didn't create difficult terrain, and was reduced to 2d8 damage
- Shield only granted AC against the triggering attack

Would 5th and 6th level casters really be head and shoulders above everyone else? It seems to me, back of the napkin calculations, they'd be strong *but they'd have a lane.* That to me is the real problem of overtuned classes - they can make other players feel like the chump for not picking that class.

Capital letters here, metaphorically speaking, this is not to say that certain other classes don't also need a boost!! Particularly out of combat. This is not to say that tweaking a few spells is going to balance wizards to barbarians. I'm saying that maybe this is a case of the 80/20 rule: 80% of the issue is being caused by 20% of the problems. And a big chunk of that 20% is, maybe, a few well-known and fan-favorite spells.

You are assuming there's universal agreement on what spells are broken. Of all the spells you mentioned, I have no problem with any them whatsoever and would not want them changed. There is point to look into what spells do to ensure a particular spell does not break the game, but do not confuse breaking the game with being powerful. Spells are allowed to be powerful.

[strangebloke]

Depends what we mean by 'broken' and what we mean by 'a few'

Generally speaking the strongest spells fall into two categories.
1. Spells that are very strong and work in a very clear way at pretty much any table (shield, fear, fireball, hyp pattern)
2. Spells that have (depending on rulings/table conditions) extremely busted applications (simulacrum, animate dead, planar binding, conjure animals, plant growth) but could also be worthless if your DM goes with a more restrictive ruling or just straight up makes it impossible for you to use them.

Obviously, at some tables type 2 simply isn't relevant to begin with because you're never building a horde of undead chickens and the DM only lets plant growth target existing large plants like thornbushes, etc. So in some sense these are already "banned" in the sense that the DM is aware of their more powerful applications and is deliberately reigning them in.

And, at least in my view, spellcasters are still extremely strong without those silly tricks. Druids suffer the most from removing all the more ruling-dependent / broken spells, whereas clerics basically lose nothing important until mid/high level.

From there, type 1 spells have a LOT of redundancy. Sure, if you get rid of hypnotic pattern that makes some classes worse, but they can take fear as well, which is similar in some ways. Fireball is better than lightning bolt but neither is bad. Something like Spirit Guardians will be sorely missed, but clerics have plenty of other strong things to do with concentration.

So basically if you effectively ban all of the stronger type 2 spells, and then ban a lot of the stronger type 1 spells (shield, spirit guardians, mage armor, phantom steed) you do end up in a place where casters are a good deal weaker, though I'd still say stronger than all but the strongest martials at 9+ or so.

"Broken?" Eh. Arguably you stop them from being broken by getting rid of the type 2 spells.

But its a pretty long list either way.

[Skrum]

You are assuming there's universal agreement on what spells are broken. Of all the spells you mentioned, I have no problem with any them whatsoever and would not want them changed. There is point to look into what spells do to ensure a particular spell does not break the game, but do not confuse breaking the game with being powerful. Spells are allowed to be powerful.

Well, when I say broken, I don't mean in the 3.5 *literally* breaking the game over one's knee. I mean that there are clear and demonstrable "best in class/best in slot" choices that will maximize chances to "win" DnD. I mean broken as in overtuned. I think there are a few pretty universally recognized spells that are like....auto-choices. Those are the spells I'm talking about.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

After having played BG3 for a while and watched forums about that game with non D&D Players. I think Spellcasters are powerful because we're the type of people who think outside the box.

At the risk of Off Topicing a little bit. The number of people insisting that Casters suck Martials are better at everything is astounding and almost comical on, say, the BG3 Steam forum. And when you point out basic things (The math of DPR with caster vs martial, the control options, the reach and shear power... Not everyone thinks about these things in the way we do.

[Skrum]

From there, type 1 spells have a LOT of redundancy. Sure, if you get rid of hypnotic pattern that makes some classes worse, but they can take fear as well, which is similar in some ways. Fireball is better than lightning bolt but neither is bad. Something like Spirit Guardians will be sorely missed, but clerics have plenty of other strong things to do with concentration.


I like your distinction, and will say more about that in a minute, but I disagree with you here. Fireball isn't just a little better than lightning bolt, it's head and shoulders better than lightning bolt. If fireball were only as good as lightning bolt, I wouldn't have a problem with fireball. Hypno isn't as far above fear as FB is to LB, but hypno is still noticeably better. Fear has much shorter range (thus more likely for allies to get it the way because the caster has to get into range first), and is more easily broken.

The margins on these 2 comparisons might not be a lot (they're all good spells), but that margin is exactly what I think the problem is.

As far as type 1 and type 2 spells go, I'm honestly more talking about type 1. Type 2, as you note, are contextual spells that a DM can get savvy to, and ideally, give the player who picked that spell times to use it without letting them abuse it. Plant Growth is a good example of this. Type 1 spells are plain text "this spell is incredibly good, has virtually no contextual barrier, and will often swing encounters wildly with a single casting." This means the DM has to respond in a much more multifaceted, mechanics-aware way, and do so while ALSO not making other classes feel like jokers can be quite challenging.

[GeneralVryth]

After having played BG3 for a while and watched forums about that game with non D&D Players. I think Spellcasters are powerful because we're the type of people who think outside the box.

At the risk of Off Topicing a little bit. The number of people insisting that Casters suck Martials are better at everything is astounding and almost comical on, say, the BG3 Steam forum. And when you point out basic things (The math of DPR with caster vs martial, the control options, the reach and shear power... Not everyone thinks about these things in the way we do.

You will see the same pattern in Solasta. There are 2 important differences between those games and playing 5e as a ttrpg.

1. Both games limit what can be done with spells to a certain set of choices, and have fewer spell choices in general. Both facts reduce the power of spells which derive a fair amount from flexibility.

2. Both games provide ample magic items. Martials are more dependent on the magic items than casters. Solasta in particular with it's bevy of +1/+1dX weapons, has notable effect on martial damage which caster damage was already only keeping up with in some situations.

I have actively played games of Solasta (which very closely follows the 5e rules), where I ran a caster heavy and a martial heavy party through the same campaign and compared their progress judging my days taken to complete. The martials almost always had an easier go of it.

All of the above, in combination with the 5e games I have played just reinforces my view that casters are not much if any better than martials (at least at lower levels) in combat, with the exception of a few very powerful spells. Where this breaks down of course is 5 MWDs where casters don't feel any need to ration and can just burn brightly without consequences.


No, they shouldn't be elevated....

The entire point of the post you replied to was that 'being a blaster' is not 'I took this spell.'

Draconic Sorc adds Cha both to Fireball and Firebolt, for one example.

I was disagreeing with your post, and providing numbers to back it up. My challenge to you would to show casters still compete well in damage without the spells in question, which just above average optimization for the caster and martials.

[Dork_Forge]

I was disagreeing with your post, and providing numbers to back it up. My challenge to you would to show casters still compete well in damage without the spells in question, which just above average optimization for the caster and martials.

Ignoring the fact that caster damage is incredibly variable based on encounter due to the nature of AoEs, sure:

You gave the numbers for a greatsword wielding Barbarian and Fighter:

Barbarian: 24 per turn (72 per 3 round encounter)

Fighter: 20 per turn (60 per 3 round encounter, 80 in AS encounters)

Celestial Warlock:

Guiding Bolt 6d6+3 = 24

Followed by two rounds of EB/AB spam: 17/round

Warlock total for 3 rounds: 24+17+17= 58*

* A Guiding Bolt hit would have a knock-on for crit chance and hit chance, as well as a GB crit being worth drastically more than a Greatsword crit, considering those factors would narrow this further.

Draconic Sorcerer:

Fireball: 8d6+3 = 31/target (15 on a save)
Firebolt: 2d10+3 = 14

3 round (2 target fail) = 90 [104]
3 round (1 fail 1 success) = 74 [88]
3 round (2 fails) = 58 [72]

[numbers in brackets represent Quickening a Firebolt on the Fireball turn, Twinning Firebolt is also an option]

So with no more optimization than taking a subclass, the Warlock is doing fine with a rider advantage for the party. The Sorcerer is above the Barbarian in 2/3 scenarios. Adding a single target to the Fireball pushes above this, given the size of Fireball, not an uncommon scenario.

Given that this isn't high OP novaing, those numbers are very good for ranged damage at meh OP. The ranged part is important, since you chose the biggest weapon, but that has downsides. A closer comparison would be a longbow Fighter, which would have higher accuracy but drop 5 damage per Extra Attack (bringing the Fighter's numbers substantially below the Warlock's, even with AS).


Of course those are martials without subclass or other damage considerations, but considering the versatility spellcasting offers and the ceiling you can go to with blaster damage, the numbers look right where they should be. Casters should not equal or surpass martial damage when they're really trying except in very niche scenarios, because of roles and opportunity costs.

This is all an aside anyway because you shouldn't be comparing damage to martials in the first place, you should be comparing it to the monster HP you'll actually be trying t reduce to 0.

[GeneralVryth]

Ignoring the fact that caster damage is incredibly variable based on encounter due to the nature of AoEs, sure:

You gave the numbers for a greatsword wielding Barbarian and Fighter:

Barbarian: 24 per turn (72 per 3 round encounter)

Fighter: 20 per turn (60 per 3 round encounter, 80 in AS encounters)

Celestial Warlock:

Guiding Bolt 6d6+3 = 24

Followed by two rounds of EB/AB spam: 17/round

Warlock total for 3 rounds: 24+17+17= 58*

* A Guiding Bolt hit would have a knock-on for crit chance and hit chance, as well as a GB crit being worth drastically more than a Greatsword crit, considering those factors would narrow this further.

Draconic Sorcerer:

Fireball: 8d6+3 = 31/target (15 on a save)
Firebolt: 2d10+3 = 14

3 round (2 target fail) = 90 [104]
3 round (1 fail 1 success) = 74 [88]
3 round (2 fails) = 58 [72]

[numbers in brackets represent Quickening a Firebolt on the Fireball turn, Twinning Firebolt is also an option]

So with no more optimization than taking a subclass, the Warlock is doing fine with a rider advantage for the party. The Sorcerer is above the Barbarian in 2/3 scenarios. Adding a single target to the Fireball pushes above this, given the size of Fireball, not an uncommon scenario.

Given that this isn't high OP novaing, those numbers are very good for ranged damage at meh OP. The ranged part is important, since you chose the biggest weapon, but that has downsides. A closer comparison would be a longbow Fighter, which would have higher accuracy but drop 5 damage per Extra Attack (bringing the Fighter's numbers substantially below the Warlock's, even with AS).


Of course those are martials without subclass or other damage considerations, but considering the versatility spellcasting offers and the ceiling you can go to with blaster damage, the numbers look right where they should be. Casters should not equal or surpass martial damage when they're really trying except in very niche scenarios, because of roles and opportunity costs.

This is all an aside anyway because you shouldn't be comparing damage to martials in the first place, you should be comparing it to the monster HP you'll actually be trying t reduce to 0.

That is 3 encounters at 3 rounds each, what about the other 3 encounters when the Sorc is out of 3rd level slots? Or if the encounters are 5 rounds? I know with particular combinations of effects (mostly centering trying to stack damage across multiple hits in a single spell), you can compete/exceed a martial with a caster in terms of damage. But I think specific combos that are anti-thematic is a bad way to support what should be a pretty standard archetype.

My contention is a caster that spends most of their resources on doing damage should be able to compete with martials that do the same (the variable being the number of encounters in a day, and length, which should average out). Based on both of our numbers, casters need Fireball level damage to get the necessary spikes so they can coast on lower damage cantrips later. Which suggest most damage spells should be closer to Fireball's level of effectiveness than say Melf's Acid Arrow, or Ice Storm.

[Dork_Forge]

That is 3 encounters at 3 rounds each, what about the other 3 encounters when the Sorc is out of 3rd level slots? Or if the encounters are 5 rounds? I know with particular combinations of effects (mostly centering trying to stack damage across multiple hits in a single spell), you can compete/exceed a martial with a caster in terms of damage. But I think specific combos that are anti-thematic is a bad way to support what should be a pretty standard archetype.

Then they use lower slots and something like Scorching Ray or more cantrip spam... But there is no reason why a 6 encounter day should warrant that kind of firepower for each encounter, especially since it's a party game and the guidelines are basically '6-8 encounters, as difficulty increases reduce number of encounters.'

But this could just as easily be 'but what about 3 encounters of medium-hard difficulty!' at which point resources start to tip and favour the long rest classes like a blasting Sorc.

There are a bunch of ways that give blaster casters respectable, competitive damage in the landscape of 5e encounters. Casters aren't competing with martial PCs, they're competing with monsters alongside martial PCs (probably).

And you have not shown that caster damage is lacking in system expectations. It is not an arms race between players.


My contention is a caster that spends most of their resources on doing damage should be able to compete with martials that do the same (the variable being the number of encounters in a day, and length, which should average out). Based on both of our numbers, casters need Fireball level damage to get the necessary spikes so they can coast on lower damage cantrips later. Which suggest most damage spells should be closer to Fireball's level of effectiveness than say Melf's Acid Arrow, or Ice Storm.

I completely disagree because spell choice is so open. Those blasters could just as equally throw a control effect. That versatility must come with a price.

I also completely disagree with the notion that other spells need to be uplifted to the outlier level of Fireball. Caster damage in 5e is appropriate with edge cases of being stupid based on certain combinations and interpretations. They do not need more damage.

The only change I could support is blasting spells to support levels where there aren't many real options instead of just upcasting lower level spells. And even that I don't really care about or think the system really needs more spells at all.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

As I just said in another thread the PWT == Surprise thing relies on a couple of situational/dubious assumptions

Firstly it disregards the first part of the rule in question "The GM determines who might be surprised"

Stealth also requires obscurement to work. Medieval defensive or guard positions generally stripped out any sort of cover that could be used like that. There may be clever ways around it such as swimming around the moat and climbing up underneath the drawbridge but that requires other rolls that PWT does nothing to help with. PWT is however excellent at escaping, its almost an auto-win when using the chase rules and the party is the one being chased.

If there is cover then PWT will reliably grant hidden attacker advantage, if there is no cover it will do nothing. It will not grant surprise against anything that I as GM deem to be on guard and ready for trouble.

You will note that in my earlier post I used the words, "in the right circumstances". I think describing times when PWT is effectively neutered (what you describe as medieval guard positions) as situational is a stretch. Yes there are times in a DnD game where there is little to no cover, but there are a lot of times where there is ample cover. When PWT works, such as outdoors, it tends to work over and over as I stated earlier. IME those times are plentiful.

[tokek]

You will note that in my earlier post I used the words, "in the right circumstances". I think describing times when PWT is effectively neutered (what you describe as medieval guard positions) as situational is a stretch. Yes there are times in a DnD game where there is little to no cover, but there are a lot of times where there is ample cover. When PWT works, such as outdoors, it tends to work over and over as I stated earlier. IME those times are plentiful.

PWT is amazing for escaping situations you don't want to be in. See the chase rules - PWT is almost an auto-win if you are trying to get away.

Its pretty good at avoiding random encounters, for more or less the same reason really.

But for "sneak up on the enemy and take them all out with surprise" its very dependent on a DM who decides that the enemy won't take basic precautions that real medieval types did and that the first sentence of the surprise rule is not crunchy enough so they ignore it. That first sentence to my mind reads "Does not work when they are on guard unless you find a way to do something actually surprising. Being sneaky is expected.".

Being hidden from an enemy to get advantage on a shot is dependent on terrain. Getting surprise is dependent both on terrain (you need to be able to use stealth before you can succeed) and the vulnerability of the enemy to surprise. An enemy on guard is specifically trying not to be taken by surprise - I won't let you surprise them by any approach they might have anticipated. So to surprise them you will have to do significantly more than pass a stealth check.

That actually makes rogues useful in the game. Sneakily making their way across rooftops, using their tools to lift up a couple of roof slates so they can drop down silently behind the guards. That is the sort of thing that would permit surprise against a guard in a game I run - but its more skill checks or class features than just stealth and PWT does nothing to help those other checks.

Yes I am making that first sentence do a lot of heavy lifting. But its there for a reason - as GM I am there to decide if surprise is even possible and if I duck that responsibility then I'm not fully playing my part in making a fun and challenging game. Its really not the fault of PWT spell if the game then becomes easy-mode for the players, its my fault for not coming up with an interesting challenge.

[Zetakya]

Fireball is fairly powerful as an attack spell, but it also has some pretty steep limitations. It only does damage. It does it in a very commonly resisted element. It is notorious for causing collateral damage. And it horrendously obvious vulgar magic, causing both light and sound that is perceivable at some distance.

Breaking out the Fireball is an option for if the situation has already gone to hell, but taking it as an lazy recourse can very easily make a situation worse.

[stoutstien]

I've been given magic, spell, and spellcasting a lot of thought for my WIP. Something has always been off about it and 5e's overall simple approach has exposed it in a larger fashion.

If one takes away the numbers and flavor text and looks at the core principles of the features you have a series of risk/reward that can be applied to every layer of play. (Action, scene, arc, meta). When the spotlight is on that player and are using risk/reward mechanics you have to balance four different factors:

- overcoming the odds is more rewarding than if you are favored to win. The lv 1 party out smarting the ogre is more rewarding than the lv 3 party doing the same. The lower the chance of success the better it feels. The natural 20 or other such effect.

-the more intuitive the risk/reward ratio is the higher the overall risk should be. Blind gambles should be low risk where clear odds should be high.

-failure is (usually) not fun. Occasional failure is fine but multiple failures are frustrating. Also the severity of failure should be based on how often one can take the risk. The less chances you have, the lower the fail chance should be. Unrepeatable risks are at one end of the scale and infinite repeatable ones are at the other. Making one strong attack with a %80 success rate feels very similar to two weaker attacks at 60% success rate if the risk of failure is approx the same.

- opportunities for coordinated and planned transfer of risk(s) should increase the number and severity of risks. Larger groups working together can handle higher risks.



Now if we look at spell casting it tend to be the exact opposite of everything listed here. They make the risk of failure lower, they are high reward and low risk, they frequency completely ignore % of failure with explicit success or allow repeatable attempts where it's not supported, and it eliminates the increased risk of having larger groups. Spell casting is a spotlight hog but it's talent is equivalent to a predictable worn out comedy bit. Spell casting is pretending to be a risk/reward system but it's not while everyone else is still limited by those limit. Worse part is it's everywhere leading to the issue where if you ask for the best way to address challenge X you are almost guaranteed that's going to involve spells.

[LudicSavant]

Which suggest most damage spells should be closer to Fireball's level of effectiveness than say Melf's Acid Arrow, or Ice Storm.

Oof. Melf's Acid Arrow is so bad that even if you made it auto-hit, it might still arguably be worse than upcast Magic Missile. :smallfrown:


Fireball is fairly powerful as an attack spell, but it also has some pretty steep limitations. It only does damage. It does it in a very commonly resisted element. It is notorious for causing collateral damage. And it horrendously obvious vulgar magic, causing both light and sound that is perceivable at some distance.

Breaking out the Fireball is an option for if the situation has already gone to hell, but taking it as an lazy recourse can very easily make a situation worse.

Yeah. I'd say Fireball is good, not broken.

[PhoenixPhyre]

3. Martials need better non-combat utility especially at higher levels. How to do this has always been a bit of a puzzle without some kind of meta mechanics or more involved social/favors system, at least while keeping psuedo-realistic nature of non-magic aspects. I don't like the 4e approach of separating out all utility magic and just giving it to everyone. That makes everyone magical, and changes the feel of the world. I would much rather see something more like a martial being able to call in a favor when in a given area to get something like a potion of flight, or a cleric that kind revive a friend as actual mechanic.

To me, letting everyone access the magic that's all around you, that anyone can do (given the right knowledge and tools) is way more in keeping with versimilitude than saying "as a fighter I just automatically know someone who will give me a potion of flight here!" without establishing that in the fiction. Why is it only the martial that can do that? Why can they do that in any random area (which is what you need for it to even be remotely relevant)?

Trying to cabin martials into "cannot do anything even remotely supernatural as seen from Earth" will do one of two things.
1. It will make them the Guy at the Gym with a useless power. Basically where they are today. Because you have to layer on so many restrictions, caveats, limitations, and gotchas onto the abilities to make them make any kind of sense in the world that they become useless. And if you try to make the power strong enough to compensate, you end up in the worst case--useless 99% of the time, overpowering 1%. That's bad game design and doesn't actually fix any of the discrepancies.

2. Shatter any kind of world-logic. Why does the fighter (or whichever class you give this to) know someone who will donate a potion of flight just at a convenient time (because that's what you need to be on par with fly), but no one else can? Why is making social connections a fighter-specific thing? Why is this something that makes sense to be class locked, when it's purely fiction-interaction? Why can the (whoever) summon an army right here, even deep in enemy territory? That all seems very...magical to me.

For me, saying that the world has certain principles that our world doesn't share, principles like "if you perform certain rituals just right, you can cause a group of people to be able to fly" or "if you trace the right circle, you can summon a devil and try to make a bargain" is much more grounded in the world's logic and keeps everything running right. Trying to shun any kind of non-spell magic doesn't.

I can accept Charles Atlas superpowers (where training hard gives you "magic", as seen from Earth, but things that are within the fictional world's logic as non-supernatural). I can accept even "everyone here in a magical world has some connection to the magic field and thus can do magic even if they don't cast spells". I can't accept that you have non-magical (as seen from Earth) meta powers that summon convenient vendors. That breaks the world's logic for me very hard.

[Skrum]

I know this is heretical to a lot of people, but I think Skyrim (probably accidently) did something that makes a lot of sense concerning high level characters: they all kinda converge on being able to do everything. The party might've started out as a plate wearing sword and board fighter, a nimble rogue, a cleric of Pelor, and a draconic sorcerer, but 17 levels later, they're all avatars of magical, cosmic might welding powers that most mortals can't comprehend.

Something similar is on display with very high level boxers (Andre Ward and Terrance Crawford are good modern examples). They don't really *have* a style in the strictest sense - they can do anything, fight any way they feel like fighting. They're still human so there's techniques and strategies they *favor,* but they adapt themselves to the fighter in front of them as they feel like. They've transcended style.

So, I completely agree that insisting that fighters remain "the guy at the gym" is not a tenable dynamic. If you're playing a different game where you don't progress behind level 5 and a hill giant or a green hag is the BBEG, sure, the guy at the gym has a place. But the guy at the gym doesn't fight fiends, liches, and beholders. Trying to shoehorn the guy at the gym into high fantasy has defined and held back martial classes for a very long time.

[Pex]

Well, when I say broken, I don't mean in the 3.5 *literally* breaking the game over one's knee. I mean that there are clear and demonstrable "best in class/best in slot" choices that will maximize chances to "win" DnD. I mean broken as in overtuned. I think there are a few pretty universally recognized spells that are like....auto-choices. Those are the spells I'm talking about.

In other words you don't like it when players take the same spells. All I can say is, 'too bad'. Taking away player toys doesn't solve anything. It only creates resentful players. It's their character, not yours. By inherent reality you cannot create every ability of everything to be of equal value. 4E tried and in doing so people complained of it being "samey".

Fireball is not the solution to everything despite the joke. Sometimes the cleric has to cast Bless because PCs absolutely need to make their saving throws against monster effects, so no Spirit Guardians. As players gain more experience they learn new tactics to try out different spells, sometimes just for something different and not cast Fireball or Spirit Guardians again. It could depend on party make up. The sorcerer might want to twin Haste on the fighter and barbarian than cast Fireball. The cleric will cast Warding Bond and later Shield of Faith on the paladin when he goes toe-to-toe against the demon.

Still, when for umpteenth time a wizard player gets to 5th level and chooses Fireball I really don't care and do not feel the need to overhaul the entire spell list because how dare he.

[Tanarii]

Fireball is fairly powerful as an attack spell, but it also has some pretty steep limitations. It only does damage. It does it in a very commonly resisted element. It is notorious for causing collateral damage. And it horrendously obvious vulgar magic, causing both light and sound that is perceivable at some distance.
Nothing indicates that any spell (except for the specially noted Thunderwave and Knock) are audible any further than the other sounds of battle: clash of metal weapons, battle cries, screams of agony. And in particular, those spells are called out because 300ft is clearly an exceptional distance compared to those normal sounds of battle.

Fireball doesn't cause an area of even dim light, but agreed it's probably visible at some distance as an event. Lack of creating area of visibility of other objects doesn't mean something doesn't shed enough light to see the thing itself, as has been discussed in many previous discussion.

Agreed on collateral damage. IMX usability of Fireball is highly overrated. Lightning Bolt is a comparable spell not just because it does the same damage, but also because the ability to actually use it when needed is far more likely. It's kind of funny how often the online community dismisses it and focuses on a far less easily used spell instead.

[GeneralVryth]

To me, letting everyone access the magic that's all around you, that anyone can do (given the right knowledge and tools) is way more in keeping with versimilitude than saying "as a fighter I just automatically know someone who will give me a potion of flight here!" without establishing that in the fiction. Why is it only the martial that can do that? Why can they do that in any random area (which is what you need for it to even be remotely relevant)?

Trying to cabin martials into "cannot do anything even remotely supernatural as seen from Earth" will do one of two things.
1. It will make them the Guy at the Gym with a useless power. Basically where they are today. Because you have to layer on so many restrictions, caveats, limitations, and gotchas onto the abilities to make them make any kind of sense in the world that they become useless. And if you try to make the power strong enough to compensate, you end up in the worst case--useless 99% of the time, overpowering 1%. That's bad game design and doesn't actually fix any of the discrepancies.

2. Shatter any kind of world-logic. Why does the fighter (or whichever class you give this to) know someone who will donate a potion of flight just at a convenient time (because that's what you need to be on par with fly), but no one else can? Why is making social connections a fighter-specific thing? Why is this something that makes sense to be class locked, when it's purely fiction-interaction? Why can the (whoever) summon an army right here, even deep in enemy territory? That all seems very...magical to me.

For me, saying that the world has certain principles that our world doesn't share, principles like "if you perform certain rituals just right, you can cause a group of people to be able to fly" or "if you trace the right circle, you can summon a devil and try to make a bargain" is much more grounded in the world's logic and keeps everything running right. Trying to shun any kind of non-spell magic doesn't.

I can accept Charles Atlas superpowers (where training hard gives you "magic", as seen from Earth, but things that are within the fictional world's logic as non-supernatural). I can accept even "everyone here in a magical world has some connection to the magic field and thus can do magic even if they don't cast spells". I can't accept that you have non-magical (as seen from Earth) meta powers that summon convenient vendors. That breaks the world's logic for me very hard.

But then everyone and everything is magical. Which creates a very different world, that's as much of a world-building problem as so called "convenient vendor" which is not actually what what I had in mind. The whole premise of the Warlock class is magic is not easy to be able to learn and do. There may be a lot limited ways in which different races can do naturally do one or 2 magical tricks, but what you are suggesting is a much more massive scope and a very different feel to the world. Why is a Fighter whose training is combat and weapon use, just as good as casting magical rituals as the Wizard who taught themselves magic?

Also, screw guy at the gym as the limit for martials, I much prefer Captain America.

For what's worth, the way I would envision the subsystem, would be rather feat like and it would focus on what characters do in their downtime. Whether it's aquiring magic items, making connections to be able to call in favors, learning new forms of ritual and esoteric magic (which would require some magical ability to start or a large investment), or heck just training yourself to the peek of mortal ability. And martials would get more resources to play with here, representing the lesser amount of time they should need keeping their abilities sharp.

That way it's not restricted to one group or another, and actually opens up ritual magic to nartials in a similar vein as to what you describe (without nearly as much of the world impact), while still tending encourage people to do what they are best at.

Of course actually implementing the above would be adding a large sub-system, and it can run into narrative issues if their isn't enough downtime to justify it. But it has the benefit of addressing the largest problems that can plague martials (insufficient magic item access, and non-magical utility solutions), while fleshing out a weaker are of the magic system (ritual magic), and ideally giving players another tool round out their character outside of combat (even if it can have combat implications). If I was to try and retrofit it on the existing 5e structure, I would have it replace the feat system.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But then everyone and everything is magical. Which creates a very different world, that's as much of a world-building problem as so called "convenient vendor" which is not actually what what I had in mind. The whole premise of the Warlock class is magic is not easy to be able to learn and do. There may be a lot limited ways in which different races can do naturally do one or 2 magical tricks, but what you are suggesting is a much more massive scope and a very different feel to the world. Why is a Fighter whose training is combat and weapon use, just as good as casting magical rituals as the Wizard who taught themselves magic?

Also, screw guy at the gym as the limit for martials, I much prefer Captain America.

For what's worth, the way I would envision the subsystem, would be rather feat like and it would focus on what characters do in their downtime. Whether it's aquiring magic items, making connections to be able to call in favors, learning new forms of ritual and esoteric magic (which would require some magical ability to start or a large investment), or heck just training yourself to the peek of mortal ability. And martials would get more resources to play with here, representing the lesser amount of time they should need keeping their abilities sharp.

That way it's not restricted to one group or another, and actually opens up ritual magic to nartials in a similar vein as to what you describe (without nearly as much of the world impact), while still tending encourage people to do what they are best at.

Of course actually implementing the above would be adding a large sub-system, and it can run into narrative issues if their isn't enough downtime to justify it. But it has the benefit of addressing the largest problems that can plague martials (insufficient magic item access, and non-magical utility solutions), while fleshing out a weaker are of the magic system (ritual magic), and ideally giving players another tool round out their character outside of combat (even if it can have combat implications). If I was to try and retrofit it on the existing 5e structure, I would have it replace the feat system.

For one thing, they’re not as good. Wizards get Ritual Caster, giving them guaranteed access to a few (in my implementation), while others have to find access/knowledge during play. And these are the sort of thing where the major input is willpower, which isn’t caster specific.

For another thing, the world is already entirely magical. D&D worlds are not just Earth with stapled on magic. Magic is part of life. Heck, a bunch of races have built in magic. And it’s a world where dedication and focus brings power (monks), so why not training?

Tying it into downtime means it only applies at the dm’s whim, meaning casters are still better because they don’t need handouts. And casters have (fictionally) equal or better access to downtime activities.

[Unoriginal]

Two things:

1) In D&D, all adventurers are fantastical, that is not the same as magical.

An human fighting an adult dragon to a dragon means both are fantastical. It doesn't require either to be magical.

2) A solid ritual system that everyone can use but with Wizard as the ritual expert, would be nice.

It fits the thematics and world logic for the "study magic" class to be good at rituals while having less energy to cast spells than the classes who are (or are connected to) a source of magic, and that the others can do it too means the system can grow without creating toys for one and not for another.

Also possible to make the Wizard give bonuses whe they help the teammate who's doimg the ritual.

Rituals could also be used to reinforce class identity, ex: all Warlocks start with a 'contact mystic being' ritual, etc.


Mmhhh, I may have to homebrew something based on those ideas...

[PhoenixPhyre]

Two things:

1) In D&D, all adventurers are fantastical, that is not the same as magical.

An human fighting an adult dragon to a dragon means both are fantastical. It doesn't require either to be magical.

I use “magical” and fantastical identically. Casting spells is one of many ways to be fantastical/magical. Training really hard, having a connection to the primal forces mediated by strong emotions (aka Rage) is another. Etc.

It’s all stuff that no Earth person can do. And even most in-fiction people can’t do. Not because they’re not special, but because they aren’t willing or able to put in the effort or take the risks.

Yes, from the in-universe perspective training is “natural”…but so is a priest’s prayers being answered (aka a cleric’s spells). In a magical world, it’s all applications of natural principles of reality. Just different forms and aspects.

[strangebloke]

I like your distinction, and will say more about that in a minute, but I disagree with you here. Fireball isn't just a little better than lightning bolt, it's head and shoulders better than lightning bolt. If fireball were only as good as lightning bolt, I wouldn't have a problem with fireball. Hypno isn't as far above fear as FB is to LB, but hypno is still noticeably better. Fear has much shorter range (thus more likely for allies to get it the way because the caster has to get into range first), and is more easily broken.

The margins on these 2 comparisons might not be a lot (they're all good spells), but that margin is exactly what I think the problem is.

As far as type 1 and type 2 spells go, I'm honestly more talking about type 1. Type 2, as you note, are contextual spells that a DM can get savvy to, and ideally, give the player who picked that spell times to use it without letting them abuse it. Plant Growth is a good example of this. Type 1 spells are plain text "this spell is incredibly good, has virtually no contextual barrier, and will often swing encounters wildly with a single casting." This means the DM has to respond in a much more multifaceted, mechanics-aware way, and do so while ALSO not making other classes feel like jokers can be quite challenging.

Fireball is a lot better than lightning bolt, mostly because its got a larger AOE and more range, but if you're comparing and evocation wizard to a standard S&B champion its pretty clear how much something like lightning bolt makes a caster suffer. A lot of best-in-class spells are doubly as good as the next best option (or as with shield there is no next best option) but even the baseline caster options are just full of absolute bangers. I think if you really want to reign casters in you are going to need to ban a LONG list of spells.

And with type 2... it varies. It's easy to just avoid using the most broken application of plant growth or mirage arcane - just don't use the stupid overpowered ruling. But with something like Conjure Animals you either need to deliberately and intentionally screw your player over, or you need some system that seems 'random but fair'. That requires a lot of work. Something like simulacrum is busted as soon as the wizard has wealth or downtime, and avoiding either of those completely isn't advisable IMO. Avoiding the spell's overpowered applications creates more problems than it solves, and really the simpler tactic is to just ban the dang thing (or ban the worst applications and give everyone else loads of buffs). Animate dead is similarly troublesome. You CAN make it really annoying and troublesome but again, its questionable if that's really the right way to go.

[Tanarii]

Martials being mostly non-magical and full casters being horrible at martial stuff doesn't have to mean Martials are bad and full casters are go-like, with no way to match power in the end game.

There are plenty of non-D&D systems, and even some D&D systems, that demonstrate this.

PF2 and Forbidden Lands just to name two non-D&D systems. And AD&D and 4e did it pretty well. BECMI wasn't bad, although Magic-Users started to go off the hook a bit at very high levels.

5e might suffer a bit in late Tier 3 and Tier 4. But it does fine before then as long as a DM keeps an eye out on out-of-scope resting and optional rules (especially Multiclassing).

[Slipjig]

Nothing indicates that any spell (except for the specially noted Thunderwave and Knock) are audible any further than the other sounds of battle: clash of metal weapons, battle cries, screams of agony.

Sure. It doesn't expressly state that Lightning Bolt or Flame Darts are visible in a dark room, either, but at some point narrative common sense has to kick in.

[Amechra]

Spellcasters are broken as a direct consequence of the structural assumptions behind how spellcasting is implemented in D&D. And I don't mean broken in the sense of "too strong", I mean broken in the sense of "doesn't work in the intended manner".

The issue is that spell lists are effectively the result of taking a few classes worth of features (both actually mechanically useful stuff and ribbons), tossing them in a sack, and going "hey, go dumpster diving!". And that results in classes with really high optimization ceilings and really low optimization floors. Options that are clearly supposed to be staple pseudo-class features are just kinda tossed on the list in the hope that players will be able to figure it out.

Heck, I'm pretty sure that you could get away with converting iconic spells into class features and then scrapping the spell list for most spellcasting classes without the majority of players noticing the difference in actual play.

[KorvinStarmast]

After the monsters of the very first encounter were killed, how did the rest of the monsters of the dungeon react to that knowledge, given their 24 hours preparation window to your next incursion? Really, unless you're talking about completely mindless monsters (and who was it that made the decision to only have mindless monsters in a Dungeon?), leaving a Dungeon after killing some of its inhabitants and coming back on the very next day should mean facing ALL the monsters of the dungeon in one encounter, in the place where it's most favourable for the monsters to ambush you. Maybe? Read through The Keep on the Borderlands. Not all of those monsters were allies. :smallwink:


Maybe Hypnotic Pattern. Advantage against, and immunity too, charmed condition is not uncomon for monsters in the MM. I discovered that as we went into Tier 2 and Tier 3 play with my bard. HP is a fine spell, in some situations, but in others it's worthless.


3. Martials need better non-combat utility especially at higher levels. Commune with Nature for Totem Barbarian, ritual, isn't a bad example of something good for a martial.

Still, when for umpteenth time a wizard player gets to 5th level and chooses Fireball I really don't care and do not feel the need to overhaul the entire spell list because how dare he. I agree.


2) A solid ritual system that everyone can use but with Wizard as the ritual expert, would be nice.

I wish they'd put in the work to do that, and to move more of the high level spells to ritual and force expensive casting components, or require groups to cast. (Certain summoning spells, for example).

I mean broken in the sense of "doesn't work in the intended manner".

The issue is that spell lists are effectively the result of taking a few classes worth of features (both actually mechanically useful stuff and ribbons), tossing them in a sack, and going "hey, go dumpster diving!". And that results in classes with really high optimization ceilings and really low optimization floors. Options that are clearly supposed to be staple pseudo-class features are just kinda tossed on the list in the hope that players will be able to figure it out.

Heck, I'm pretty sure that you could get away with converting iconic spells into class features and then scrapping the spell list for most spellcasting classes without the majority of players noticing the difference in actual play. Probably, but I doubt they'll put in the work to make that change.

[Hael]

Nerfing Fireball doesn't kill the archetype, spells as a baseline shouldn't be OP in any given niche because it's a Class-based game with other customisation factors.
It also assumes that Fireball is the only thing keeping the blaster niche a viable thing, which... just isn't true.

A lot of time when you are building a character you are really trying to make a niche. For instance, the very first character i played in 5e was a draconic ‘fire’ sorcerer. I purposefully chose not to take spells i knew were good (like web etc) and instead went for the blaster archetype, so most of my spells were blasts with a few random defenses (shield, misty step etc).

And the problem of course, is that that archetype isn’t viable at all, at least at tables where the difficulty is ramped up. The build felt bad until lvl 5 (b/c sorcerors are not great in the early game), then it felt good to ok for about 3 levels, and then it was massively disappointing after that. At level 11, when the other casters and martials are massively outdamaging you with summons and completely locking down the field you are sitting there still spamming the same spell that now only takes about 15% of enemies healthbars even when upcast.. if you twin the spell, now its 30% and a good chunk of resources. It just doesn’t make any sense. Higher level blasts just dont scale well. Imagine my disappointment when i got to cast 6th lvl chain lightning and have it barely equal something 6 lvls before.

In 2e, you could take opposition schools and things like that. Which was a nice way of making a concept more powerful by sacrificing versatility. Blasters need something like that in 5.5 b/c as it stands there damage is poor (contrast scorching ray from a draconic sorceror which costs resources to something like a 2handed champion fighter).. The worst martial should not casually outdamage a specialized blaster in a robe who is spending resources.

[KorvinStarmast]

The worst martial should not casually outdamage a specialized blaster in a robe who is spending resources. I disagree. Martials ought to be the prime damage dealers over the course of an adventure day. Their damage is always on.

[Tanarii]

Sure. It doesn't expressly state that Lightning Bolt or Flame Darts are visible in a dark room, either, but at some point narrative common sense has to kick in.

Folks "common sense" about how far sound travels are typically ridiculously off the mark.

Regardless, it's clear that any other spell (including Fireballs low roar and Shatter) is not supposed to be clearly audible at anything close to 300ft.

[KorvinStarmast]

Folks "common sense" about how far sound travels are typically ridiculously off the mark.

Regardless, it's clear that any other spell (including Fireballs low roar and Shatter) is not supposed to be clearly audible at anything close to 300ft.
Thunderclap


You create a burst of thunderous sound that can be heard up to 100 feet away. Each creature within range, other than you, must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or take 1d6 thunder damage.

The spell’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 11th level (3d6), and 17th level (4d6).
Shatter:


A sudden loud ringing noise, painfully intense, erupts from a point of your choice within range. Each creature in a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes 3d8 thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature made of inorganic material such as stone, crystal, or metal has disadvantage on this saving throw.

A nonmagical object that isn't being worn or carried also takes the damage if it's in the spell's area.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 2nd. There are some other spells that go "boom" like Thunderwave:

A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from you. Each creature in a 15-foot cube originating from you must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d8 thunder damage and is pushed 10 feet away from you. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and is not pushed.

In addition, unsecured objects that are completely within the area of effect are automatically pushed 10 feet away from you by the spell’s effect, and the spell emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st.
Not sure how far away I'd have Shatter be heard. Maybe as far away as Thunderclap, maybe less.

[Tanarii]

Not sure how far away I'd have Shatter be heard. Maybe as far away as Thunderclap, maybe less.
Or none at all. The sound might end at the radius of the damage, being directed inwards. Like Booming Blade.

Thunderclap is splat though. I wouldn't consider it an exception that proves the general rule for PHB spells, meaning ruling out 100ft as a reasonable distance. 120ft is reasonable for a spell that is significantly louder than yelling/screaming at full volume.

(Thunderwave and Knock's 300ft are the exceptions that prove the rule though. Unsurprisingly. That requires a massively loud noise. The spells should really deafen anybody close.)

[Zalam]

Setting aside completely combat balance, the game is deeply broken on non-combat balance between casters and non-casters.

One category gets meaningful class features (and a flexible, diverse, reconfigurable array) for engaging with problems other than "that guy has too many hit points remaining", the other category essentially does not.


5e is actually slightly worse than 3.x in that regard, as while the actual spell lists were far better than what you could actually do with scaling skills for (e.g.) Rogue, at least the 3.x Rogue was somewhat able to be meaningfully better in it's lane of mundane skill use, rather than getting a minor bonus, so it could (somewhat) be described as an issue of a finite number of broken spells, rather than the problem being outright the existence and premise of spellcasting.


That balance was better under AD&D and 4e. Breaking it again was a deliberate decision and was a central goal of 5e, so in that respect, the designers are to be complimented on succeeding at that goal.



Focusing purely on combat, it's more-or-less balanceable by a DM who knows their player's tricks and is trying to balance spotlight.

[Hael]

I disagree. Martials ought to be the prime damage dealers over the course of an adventure day. Their damage is always on.

This doesnt make sense to me. Martials have more hitpoints, better AC, often have better movement speed. If I am a caster and I want to play a concept where i purposefully sacrifice the aspects that make casters in this edition good (utility, cc, etc) in order to make the strongest blaster one can make, then it better be the case that the damage is considerably better than what a martial does without spending resources.

Otherwise there is zero mechanical reason to play that blaster…. You currently can’t do that in 5e. You could in previous versions. I think thats a problem.

The concept of a glass cannon always started with D&D wizards, and somehow somewhere along the way it got turned completely upside down.

[Kane0]

-snip-

Blaster casters do AoE far better than martials, who focus on single target damage.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Blaster casters do AoE far better than martials, who focus on single target damage.

Right. and still would even with fireball nerfed. So I think having them have less single target damage (by any means, blasting or not) is more than fair

[Kane0]

Yes as much as i want a mage that can select a dude and delete him, i understand why there are so few options to do so

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes as much as i want a mage that can select a dude and delete him, i understand why there are so few options to do so

I'd be ok with it... If that cost them basically all their other capabilities. One of the big problems casters have (especially wizards) is a lack of opportunity cost. Wanna switch power sets? Pick a different spell set tomorrow.

[DarknessEternal]

Yes as much as i want a mage that can select a dude and delete him, i understand why there are so few options to do so

There are fundamentally no options to do so, not few. Casting a high level spell against an enemy that has a save or nothing effect is the worst action you can take.

Saves are going to be made 25-50% of the time. And that's before the nonsense that is Legendary Resistance.

This leads to a terrible cycle: spells are strong->let monsters save easily->spells aren't strong enough to use an action on->make spells stronger->spells are strong->etc

High level spells need to do something every time, regardless of saves. The save is going to be made, you need to get something for your 1xday ability. A lesser effect that works every time would be better.

[strangebloke]

Spellcasters are broken as a direct consequence of the structural assumptions behind how spellcasting is implemented in D&D. And I don't mean broken in the sense of "too strong", I mean broken in the sense of "doesn't work in the intended manner".

The issue is that spell lists are effectively the result of taking a few classes worth of features (both actually mechanically useful stuff and ribbons), tossing them in a sack, and going "hey, go dumpster diving!". And that results in classes with really high optimization ceilings and really low optimization floors. Options that are clearly supposed to be staple pseudo-class features are just kinda tossed on the list in the hope that players will be able to figure it out.

Heck, I'm pretty sure that you could get away with converting iconic spells into class features and then scrapping the spell list for most spellcasting classes without the majority of players noticing the difference in actual play.
Yeah spot on.

Whenever you have lots of options, the end result is that optimizers get to do more work. The PHB has 99 pages of races, feats and classes, and 112 pages of spells. The net result is that if you assume a standard distribution curve for the power of any given feature, about HALF of the broken-good stuff is going to be in the spells section. And because people with access to that half of the game have a great degree of freedom as to what they want to pick from there, they can just... pick the good stuff.

Whereas someone playing a bear totem barbarian might get some strong features, they're also going to get stuck with brutal critical and the annoying restrictions on rage and such. But they'd still be way stronger than a wizard who takes true strike and witch bolt and flame arrow and mordenkainen's sword.

I disagree. Martials ought to be the prime damage dealers over the course of an adventure day. Their damage is always on.

I think that zealously trying to stop casters from ever doing damage is a losing battle. I'd much rather see martials expand out from the concept of "the damage guy." It's a very limiting concept, and there's really no reason to do things this way. In another system, I have a character who's basically a normal human in combat. But one of her abilities gives her a powerful guard who can tank for the party (intercept attacks, hit one target really strong) and the rest of her features are based around exploration and out of combat challenges. She built a walking tanker car to relocate a magic pool to a new location, as one example. I really don't want to 'save' the roll of damage for just martials, that's way too restrictive.

Though, a bit off topic.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that some spells are huge outliers and should be curbed, but I'd target things like shield and phantom steed looooong before something like fireball comes on my radar. Shield and to a lesser extent AO are a big part of what makes casters so durable, and phantom steed is just silly as soon as you imagine using it in combat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think that zealously trying to stop casters from ever doing damage is a losing battle. .

I agree with most of the rest of the post, but I think this is an unfair reading of what you quoted. It's not "casters shouldn't deal damage at all", but "casters shouldn't deal as much damage as martials do." I agree that martials should be able to do more than damage. But there needs to be tradeoffs. No one class/build should be able to even come close to doing it all. If you want to be as good as a specialist at something, you should have to give up basically everything else to do so. Yes, that includes skills (not that it's like that currently). I'd say a bard should have a wider net...at a much lower potential than a rogue. Peak bardic capability should be on par with a rogue...at the cost of spending all their resources doing what the rogue does all day long. Because the bard can do things the rogue can't even be built for. Similarly for single-target damage.

Generalists are fine, but there's a pattern for that. Be a half caster. Get a broad range of spells, but none of the juiciest and get them slow.

[strangebloke]

I agree with most of the rest of the post, but I think this is an unfair reading of what you quoted. It's not "casters shouldn't deal damage at all", but "casters shouldn't deal as much damage as martials do." I agree that martials should be able to do more than damage. But there needs to be tradeoffs. No one class/build should be able to even come close to doing it all. If you want to be as good as a specialist at something, you should have to give up basically everything else to do so. Yes, that includes skills (not that it's like that currently). I'd say a bard should have a wider net...at a much lower potential than a rogue. Peak bardic capability should be on par with a rogue...at the cost of spending all their resources doing what the rogue does all day long. Because the bard can do things the rogue can't even be built for. Similarly for single-target damage.

Generalists are fine, but there's a pattern for that. Be a half caster. Get a broad range of spells, but none of the juiciest and get them slow.

I'm just saying that structurally as long as you keep the paradigm of "casters have a million random abilities and martials just damage" you're going to end up with some of those random abilities doing way too much damage, or otherwise being so good that the damage doesn't really matter.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm just saying that structurally as long as you keep the paradigm of "casters have a million random abilities and martials just damage" you're going to end up with some of those random abilities doing way too much damage, or otherwise being so good that the damage doesn't really matter.

That I agree with.

[Corran]

Yes as much as i want a mage that can select a dude and delete him, i understand why there are so few options to do so

I'd be ok with it... If that cost them basically all their other capabilities. One of the big problems casters have (especially wizards) is a lack of opportunity cost. Wanna switch power sets? Pick a different spell set tomorrow.
That's a god way to sum the dilemma. Do we want casters who can delete an enemy at the cost of reducing magic options? Or do we want magic versatility but at the cost of casters not being able to do what martials do best (ie delete an enemy)? Since the game uses classes, I think the choice is obvious. At least if you want your class choice to matter and not treat it as a name you can use on multiple similar things.

[PhoenixPhyre]

At least if you want your class choice to matter and not treat it as a name you can use on multiple similar things.

I think part of the problem is that it very much seems to me that there are lots of people who want the latter. Who strongly value the ability to do everything with one class. And that class is always a full caster, usually a wizard. I'm in the former camp, if it's not clear.

[Corran]

I think part of the problem is that it very much seems to me that there are lots of people who want the latter. Who strongly value the ability to do everything with one class. And that class is always a full caster, usually a wizard. I'm in the former camp, if it's not clear.
Oh yeah, it's clear. I dont think I've seen anyone in support of the latter (at least on this forum). I mean, I do enjoy some of the broken stuff as an idea (eg planar binding shenanigans) and I would like to give them a try at some point in the right campaign, but at the same time I can understand why making your martials obsolete (with unlimited summons) is a bad idea.

[Goobahfish]

I think there are two (or more) questions here:

#1: Are individual cases of spells 'above the curve'.

#2: Is there a mechanical issue with the way casters are conceived in 5e.

#1: Yes
There are certain spells which really are a bit over-tuned, Hypnotic Pattern being a very good example. Where it is useful, it can be one-spell encounter ending (I have had it do that for me). TBH, any spell that falls into this style of play does to a certain extent negate the other players at the table (although in the HP example they were necessary for the simultaneous coup-de-grace).

I think this problem is fixable with tweaks.

#2: Yes
Lots of people are talking about the 5MWD in this thread. This is baked into the way the game works. D&D is a game which encourages agency. Ergo, rational creatures would turn any encounter they could into a 5MWD given the opportunity. Any other approach increases risk of death. Rational creatures try to avoid death. The Nova and 5MWD are baked in. If D&D were a more board-game-esque game, this wouldn't be a problem. Originally conceived as a dungeon survival game, this isn't actually that bad but as the more modern collaborative story-telling game it has become. It is a problem.

It also has traditionally created a weird interaction between PC and enemy design. Because these 5MWD resources (spells being the biggest offender) exist, monsters which mimic spells are particularly problematic as they are 'always nova-ing'. Non-caster monsters are instead better at... sustained damage which isn't really a thing when combat durations are relatively static.

The second major issue, as pointed out already above, is that casters (specifically Wizards/Clerics/Druids) have a great deal of flexibility in their spell choice. As spell-choice naturally bloats over time, they become more flexible and hence more powerful. Other classes do not. They have extra hard-coded choices which can be over-tuned, but the big casters don't rely on badly designed abilities (obviously the benefit from them) but instead benefit from just adding stuff to the repertoire (in the Cleric/Druid case for free). So again. It is a problem.

The third issue is that spellcasters impinge (via spells) on the DM-side of the game far more than other characters. Casting a spell (which requires resources) has a different social connotation to making a skill check (no resources). If I cast a spell and it does nothing... it is very easy to construe the DM as a butt. If I make a skill check and it fails, the DM could actually be being a butt, but because I haven't 'lost anything' it is harder to construe them as such. Many spells seem to indicate not just the 'effect' but also the 'outcome'.

A good spell (fireball) does what is says. Big ball of fire. DM says... door catches alight a little, but is heavy door and most of energy washes off and it is hot and a bit charred but remains intact. OR DM says... door blasts off its hinge hitting goblin behind it. Huzzahs. D&D FTW.

A less good spell (incite greed) explicitly describes the outcome. The monster which fails walks up to you calmly before drooling in place. There is no nuance here. Nothing interesting or unexpected can happen as a result. There are no monsters punching each other, or jostling each other out of the way.

Another less good spell (knock) just opens a door. No check. Nothing.

Unless skills are better codified with more explicit uses, they will always feel less powerful than spells (even when they shouldn't be).

[Kane0]

Another less good spell (knock) just opens a door. No check. Nothing.


4e just had Knock let you replace the Thievery check with an Arcana check. I miss that.

[Tanarii]

Lots of people are talking about the 5MWD in this thread. This is baked into the way the game works. D&D is a game which encourages agency. Ergo, rational creatures would turn any encounter they could into a 5MWD given the opportunity. Any other approach increases risk of death. Rational creatures try to avoid death. The Nova and 5MWD are baked in. If D&D were a more board-game-esque game, this wouldn't be a problem. Originally conceived as a dungeon survival game, this isn't actually that bad but as the more modern collaborative story-telling game it has become. It is a problem.
The reason it wasn't bad in the original game was because there were logical consequences for wasting time on site or retreating entirely.

In story-telling, neither logic nor time matter. It's all solved by handwavium where you jump from scene to scene at the speed of plot. And there aren't consequences for decisions, just narrative necessity.

Which is just another reason that roleplaying games shouldn't be treated as telling a story.

[ZRN]

I feel like addressing the actually "broken" spells (summoning, familiars, Shield, Simulacrum, etc.) would probably put well-built martial characters with access to some level-appropriate magical items on the same playing field as full casters at least until very high levels (15+).

I also think that full parity would require a TON of spell nerfs, and honestly it'd be easier to just buff non-casters.

I also also think that if you're a high-level "guy at the gym" in 5e that means you picked one of the like 5 non-magicky subclasses out of 44 in the PHB, so you probably WANT to be a "guy at the gym," and presumably you're not too mad that you can't fly and plane shift and command zombie hordes.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think that zealously trying to stop casters from ever doing damage is a losing battle.
But that's not the point I was making, so why did you say that? Please note that I mentioned the adventuring day, not a single encounter. In some encounters - let's say a "zerg rush" of hobgoblins trying to close so that their martial advantage will shred the party (I've seen it done, and I've done it as a DM) a well placed / timed shatter or fireball will, due to the AoE, offer a huge damage spike.
But now that resource is spent. And other dangers lurk.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that some spells are huge outliers and should be curbed, but I'd target things like shield and phantom steed looooong before something like fireball comes on my radar.
Shield and to a lesser extent AO are a big part of what makes casters so durable, and phantom steed is just silly as soon as you imagine using it in combat. I don't get my knickers in a twist over shield, but if it's OP (I am not convinced) then make it +3 rather than +5 and be done with it.
I concur that fireball doesn't need nerfing.
A few others spells could use a tweak.
I am sympathetic to a recommended adjustment for polymorph to be Spell Level or 1/2 CR, or 1/2 Character level even though that would ruin some of the fun shenanigans we've pulled over the years. And we do play this game to have fun, right? :smallwink:

[Skrum]

I also think that full parity would require a TON of spell nerfs, and honestly it'd be easier to just buff non-casters.

Sand the sharpest edges off of the full casters, give the rest of the class a little makeover, and yeah, they'd all be in the ballpark.




I also also think that if you're a high-level "guy at the gym" in 5e that means you picked one of the like 5 non-magicky subclasses out of 44 in the PHB, so you probably WANT to be a "guy at the gym," and presumably you're not too mad that you can't fly and plane shift and command zombie hordes.

I mean, I personally wouldn't mind seeing a little convergence at the very high end - I think a 18th level fighter should be a Jedi Sword Wizard, not just a Guy With a Stick. But even staying within the concept of mundane "everyman," there is absolutely zero reason the following spells couldn't be expressed as non-spell abilities that a fighter or rogue could get

bless
bane
healing word
absorb elements
catapult
command
heroism
shield
zephyr strike
aid
blur
kinetic jaunt
see invisibility
aura of vitality
fear
haste
crusader's mantle
intellect fortress

Like the mechanics of these spells are EASILY reflavored to be entirely mundane, force of personality/extraordinary physical skill and training. Most of em with no text change at all. But for some reason they're all "spells," because Regular Guys literally only get to hit things with a stick.

[GeneralVryth]

Sand the sharpest edges off of the full casters, give the rest of the class a little makeover, and yeah, they'd all be in the ballpark.

I mean, I personally wouldn't mind seeing a little convergence at the very high end - I think a 18th level fighter should be a Jedi Sword Wizard, not just a Guy With a Stick. But even staying within the concept of mundane "everyman," there is absolutely zero reason the following spells couldn't be expressed as non-spell abilities that a fighter or rogue could get

bless
bane
healing word
absorb elements
catapult
command
heroism
shield
zephyr strike
aid
blur
kinetic jaunt
see invisibility
aura of vitality
fear
haste
crusader's mantle
intellect fortress

Like the mechanics of these spells are EASILY reflavored to be entirely mundane, force of personality/extraordinary physical skill and training. Most of em with no text change at all. But for some reason they're all "spells," because Regular Guys literally only get to hit things with a stick.

When I think of a high level martial, my go to example would be Capatain America with Thor's Hammer. They should be the peak non-magical performance in whatever area they chose, and they should have magical weapons and other items worthy of their skill. That's at least for martials that want to remain non-magical at their core. I have no issues with ones that would prefer to be more like Mace Windu, a master swordsman with some magical abilities on top (in fact that would be my preferred way of playing a martial).

As for your list of spells that could be re-flavored "mundane", you need to answer the question of what makes the effect different than magic, and does it make sense (I know making sense is flavor dependent but it's a fine line). It's much easier to just re-use the effect in some kind of modified form to make it it's own, which has been done with several of those spells.
As a quick example:
Shield ~= Defensive Duelist
See Invisibility ~= Blindsight (maybe Alert)
Aid = Inspiring Leader
Fear ~= Menacing Attack
Blur ~= Patient Defense
Haste ~= Action Surge

The question is how to achieve the effect while making it make sense in a mundane way. Healing Word for example is going to have a tougher time unless you give up the range (but if it no loner costs a consumable resource that could easily be effect)

[KorvinStarmast]

As for your list of spells that could be re-flavored "mundane", you need to answer the question of what makes the effect different than magic, and does it make sense

The question is how to achieve the effect while making it make sense in a mundane way. Healing Word for example is going to have a tougher time unless you give up the range (but if it no loner costs a consumable resource that could easily be effect) The Knight NPC has an ability that is a lot like Bless. That's but one example.
The Gladiator NPC has a parry (not quite shield).
Good point on Defensive Duelist.

[Skrum]

Hit points are an abstraction, even if some spells treat them as a Bag of Blood that can be filled up. A mundane healing word is an inspiring word, a "suck it up buttercup," or other second wind-type feature.

As for the other effects, yes, mundanes get "similar" effects - but one particular type of fighter who chooses to spend their very limited maneuver options can fear a single target, for a single round, while a caster can cow an entire battlefield, is exactly the problem. A t2 samurai should be able to intimidate an army with a glance. *There is no reason* spells need to have a monopoly on large effects.

[ZRN]

I mean, I personally wouldn't mind seeing a little convergence at the very high end - I think a 18th level fighter should be a Jedi Sword Wizard, not just a Guy With a Stick. But even staying within the concept of mundane "everyman," there is absolutely zero reason the following spells couldn't be expressed as non-spell abilities that a fighter or rogue could get

bless
bane
healing word
absorb elements
catapult
command
heroism
shield
zephyr strike
aid
blur
kinetic jaunt
see invisibility
aura of vitality
fear
haste
crusader's mantle
intellect fortress

Like the mechanics of these spells are EASILY reflavored to be entirely mundane, force of personality/extraordinary physical skill and training. Most of em with no text change at all. But for some reason they're all "spells," because Regular Guys literally only get to hit things with a stick.

100% agreed, and I'd like to see more of that in feats or subclasses. But I also don't mind if they keep a few subclasses (thief, champion, berserker, etc) that just doesn't get access to any of that and is just slicing away with a greatsword through level 20. Not my preferred character type, but certainly one in keeping with D&D tradition. (For the record, I think the current playtest champion does a decent job at this, and could just use maybe some skill bonuses along the line to not completely suck out of combat.)

[ZRN]

Hit points are an abstraction, even if some spells treat them as a Bag of Blood that can be filled up. A mundane healing word is an inspiring word, a "suck it up buttercup," or other second wind-type feature.

As for the other effects, yes, mundanes get "similar" effects - but one particular type of fighter who chooses to spend their very limited maneuver options can fear a single target, for a single round, while a caster can cow an entire battlefield, is exactly the problem. A t2 samurai should be able to intimidate an army with a glance. *There is no reason* spells need to have a monopoly on large effects.

Zealot barbarian's Zealous Presence (their level 10 battle shout thing) is a decent example of this - we could definitely use more stuff like that for martials, which in practice would probably mean new subclasses and more feats.

[GeneralVryth]

Hit points are an abstraction, even if some spells treat them as a Bag of Blood that can be filled up. A mundane healing word is an inspiring word, a "suck it up buttercup," or other second wind-type feature.

As for the other effects, yes, mundanes get "similar" effects - but one particular type of fighter who chooses to spend their very limited maneuver options can fear a single target, for a single round, while a caster can cow an entire battlefield, is exactly the problem. A t2 samurai should be able to intimidate an army with a glance. *There is no reason* spells need to have a monopoly on large effects.

But that only makes sense if the target is still conscious. Trying to shoe-horn an exact spell effect in to mundane ability, just so martials have it is unwise, and can quickly devolve in to silliness (not to mention very few if any caster has all of those effects). Much better to adapt the effect to something that makes sense for martial and plays to their usual logic (usually more repeatable/less costly effects).

What spell can cow an entire battlefield in T2? Fear is still a relatively small cone. Also, what is the samurai spending for this Fear copy-cat effect you're alluding to? A caster is giving up a spell 3rd level spell slot (which depending on the battle could be used to straight kill a similar number of targets). What does the end of this look like? You slap even half your list of spell effects on Fighter without some kind of cost, and you made super-Fighter the uber-powered death machine.

There is certainly room in between where things are now and my overboard example, but they need to be played out carefully, because martials really are already good at combat, making them better is something to be done carefully to avoid making them overpowered.

Also, a much better comparison I forgot about would the feat Dragon Fear. Which just continues my point that a lot of the effects in question actually already exist outside of spells. So the real question, is what is the issue?

[Doctor Awkward]

Well, in a general sense, yes. Spells are the primary class feature of spellcasting classes. therefore, if a spell is broken then so too will be the classes that have easy, regular access to it.

However, nerfing "a spell" doesn't actually do anything to a spellcaster's overall level of power if there is at least one other spell that also lets them win at that same level. It'll make spellcasters less interesting, as they'll have a smaller list of viable options that they'll want to use, but a spellcaster isn't any less powerful if they can win the fight by casting Enemies Abound at level 3 instead of Hypnotic Pattern.

On the whole, you'll have a much easier time handing out targeted buffs to the classes that you feel are underperforming rather than trying to balance around targeted nerfs to overperformers.
If all the classes are equally effective, you can simply up the enemies your players are facing to compensate for that.

[Skrum]

super-Fighter the uber-powered death machine.

Yes



There is certainly room in between where things are now and my overboard example, but they need to be played out carefully, because martials really are already good at combat, making them better is something to be done carefully to avoid making them overpowered.

Also, a much better comparison I forgot about would the feat Dragon Fear. Which just continues my point that a lot of the effects in question actually already exist outside of spells. So the real question, is what is the issue?

C'mon guys, a fighter - scratch that, a dragonborn - can spend a feat to get a fear effect that's keyed off a tertiary stat for fighters. Why do fighters need a buff.

[tokek]

C'mon guys, a fighter - scratch that, a dragonborn - can spend a feat to get a fear effect that's keyed off a tertiary stat for fighters. Why do fighters need a buff.

Eladrin get a nice fear effect as standard if they just choose Winter.

There are ways to get these things.

I totally do not agree at all that a t2 Samurai should be able to cow an entire army. That to me is ridiculous.

[Skrum]

Eladrin get a nice fear effect as standard if they just choose Winter.

There are ways to get these things.

I totally do not agree at all that a t2 Samurai should be able to cow an entire army. That to me is ridiculous.

Let me be more specific then - a samurai should get an ability that has the same mechanics as the fear spell, but it should be keyed off str, dex, or con, and they should get this ability by 7th level

[GeneralVryth]

C'mon guys, a fighter - scratch that, a dragonborn - can spend a feat to get a fear effect that's keyed off a tertiary stat for fighters. Why do fighters need a buff.

That sarcasm works better when directed at someone who hasn't pretty consistently argued for martial buffs (though focused more on T3 and t4, and utility).

An interesting starting place for kind of what you were talking about I think would be a major expansion of Fighting Styles. Fighting Styles are already kind of half to full feats anyways. Hand them out more liberally (like Fighters get 4, Rogues and Barbarians 3, Monks, Paladins and Rangers 2) converting several feats or half feats in to them. Defensive Duelist is a logical candidate, so would be a version of Charger, Shield Master, Mage Slayer and several others, likely including a modified race agnostic version of the Dragonborn Fear. It would make the Fighting Styles in general more interesting help relieve the issue where it feels like martials need feats and ASIs while casters thend care more about just ASIs.


Let me be more specific then - a samurai should get an ability that has the same mechanics as the fear spell, but it should be keyed off str, dex, or con, and they should get this ability by 7th level

Why is a fear effect something all Samurai should have? What about those that are more focused on respect or inspiration? Or the ronin that just want to get down to business and don't give a damn about fear or respect?

[Skrum]

That sarcasm works better when directed at someone who hasn't pretty consistently argued for martial buffs (though focused more on T3 and t4, and utility).

An interesting starting place for kind of what you were talking about I think would be a major expansion of Fighting Styles. Fighting Styles are already kind of half to full feats anyways. Hand them out more liberally (like Fighters get 4, Rogues and Barbarians 3, Monks, Paladins and Rangers 2) converting several feats or half feats in to them. Defensive Duelist is a logical candidate, so would be a version of Charger, Shield Master, Mage Slayer and several others, likely including a modified race agnostic version of the Dragonborn Fear. It would make the Fighting Styles in general more interesting help relieve the issue where it feels like martials need feats and ASIs while casters thend care more about just ASIs.

Love it!




Why is a fear effect something all Samurai should have? What about those that are more focused on respect or inspiration? Or the ronin that just want to get down to business and don't give a damn about fear or respect?

A lone samurai staring down a horde of enemies, and them afraid to attack merely from the intense pressure of the samurai's swordsman's spirit is about as established a trope as I can think of. The fear spell isn't a perfect representation, but it's darn close. And when it comes to homebrew or theorycrafting, it's a lot easier to grab existing mechanics and reflavor as needed than it is to make up something entirely new.

[Goobahfish]

4e just had Knock let you replace the Thievery check with an Arcana check. I miss that.

It makes me sad :\


The reason it wasn't bad in the original game was because there were logical consequences for wasting time on site or retreating entirely.

In story-telling, neither logic nor time matter. It's all solved by handwavium where you jump from scene to scene at the speed of plot. And there aren't consequences for decisions, just narrative necessity.

Which is just another reason that roleplaying games shouldn't be treated as telling a story.

Lolz... the cynicism. But I'm not sure I totally agree. I think you are correct in the sense that at a lot of tables, consequences do not persist beyond the session (because no one can be bothered) and that is probably not so great.

OTOH, the system encourages a certain playstyle (baked-in), leaving the DM to police players for that playstyle (which is inherently an optional feature). It is difficult for this not to come across as adversarial DM-ing. I.e., if you don't play the way I want (which is not really an I want, so much as 'the way the game is designed') then I will punish you for doing so by doing nasty things. Which is I think what a DM probably should do, but... it does seem adversarial.

If Nova-ing wasn't such a big deal, (i.e., the game was restructured to narrow the gap between nova and non-nova classes), then the 5MWD would probably cease to be an issue. I am definitely in favour of a SR-based resource where SR really means... 5 minutes rest (rather than 1 hour). Maybe 2x SR /day.

[Amechra]

It bears mentioning that most narrative-focused games with resource-management subgames base it off of diagetic actions, with a really good example being the various flavors of Vampire (where your "use my cool powers" resource is recharged by having your character munch on some humans). D&D almost purely relying on time-based resources for your cool stuff is, in my opinion, one of the more unique traits of its sub-genre (and a direct result of D&D historically being a game of balancing risk vs. reward in an attrition-heavy environment).

It's actually kinda hilarious how many balance issues with the post-TSR editions of D&D are simply a result of legacy stuff that was balanced back when the game was different. My favorite one is summoning - the decision to make hirelings less of a thing meant that summons went from "I can bring some weird and unique hirelings to the table" to "I get to smash the action economy because spellcaster".

...

Honestly, one of the frustrating quirks of D&D's design is the fact that, well, the Fighter is "skilled weapons dude: the class" and not "raw combat specialist: the class". Like, there's no real reason why the Fighter can't also be the blast-happy combat mage class, other than the fact that the arbitrary decision was made that "combat magic" should be implemented like class features rather than weapons/armor.

[Tanarii]

OTOH, the system encourages a certain playstyle (baked-in), leaving the DM to police players for that playstyle (which is inherently an optional feature). It is difficult for this not to come across as adversarial DM-ing. I.e., if you don't play the way I want (which is not really an I want, so much as 'the way the game is designed') then I will punish you for doing so by doing nasty things. Which is I think what a DM probably should do, but... it does seem adversarial.

Random encounter checks and/or procedural content are the opposite adversarial. Preplanned notes for logical consequences of the enemies reaction to lair invasion and retreat of the enemy generally aren't adversarial. Both are common components in published adventures, both old school and modern. The system explicitly encourages this play style in several places in the DMG.

If a DM is using the magic of handwavium / speed of plot, or a static non-living adventuring site, or running a campaign that will naturally tend to be out of scope due to the time frame of the above being set necessarily long, then they've missed an opportunity in the first two cases and they're going to be playing out of scope in all cases. They've got three choices:
- police the adventuring day so it's in scope, probably by taking away player agency.
- modify the rest system using one of the variant rules or a homebrew one.
- do nothing then kvetch online about how the system is "broken" when their inaction has caused the problem.

[tokek]

If Nova-ing wasn't such a big deal, (i.e., the game was restructured to narrow the gap between nova and non-nova classes), then the 5MWD would probably cease to be an issue. I am definitely in favour of a SR-based resource where SR really means... 5 minutes rest (rather than 1 hour). Maybe 2x SR /day.

Even if all the PCs are able to nova the 5MWD is a problem. I discovered that early on in my running of stuff for westmarches.

DnD combat tends to snowball: a bad roll leads to a bad situation that it’s increasingly hard to recover from. It’s the action economy.

If you compress the day down to one combat and maybe 5 turns but each turn has its impact dialled up to 11 because of nova-ing then losing a turn to a bad roll is way more impact than it really should be. One bad roll can snowball into TPK because you can’t nova your way back into the fight - it was balanced on the assumption of nova every turn anyway or it was trivial easy-mode.

In a normal adventuring day PCs can’t go full throttle every turn because they will run out of gas. Also the daily budget for monsters is spread out over many encounters. When you have a bit of bad luck there are fewer monsters in your face to exploit it and the rest of the party can burn more gas for a couple of turns to recover the situation.

5MWD is bad encounter design even if everyone can nova. Especially if everyone can nova

[cfalcon]

100 times this

If the party walks away and comes back a day later then I'm like


Rolls up sleeves. Gets out Tucker's Kobolds.

You can do it but expect consequences.

Yea so here's the problem. If it's some lost dungeon inhabited by mindless things and beasts, then this is metagaming, and pretty cheesy. The beasts shouldn't team up, or form a party, or rebuild walls. That's stupid.
On the other hand, if it's a dungeon that has some sentient inhabitants, sure, they're gonna lay traps, bar doors, prepare ambushes. Then you're good.

Does 5e exclusively have the second case as the only way to build a dungeon at all? If it does, it's a narrower system than it should be. If it doesn't, great, but dungeons without that are gonna be long rested each time if the characters suspect that to be true. And they shouldn't be punished for such a thing in that case, should they?

But lets say that almost all the dungeons have at least decently sapient inhabitants. Perhaps even the truly abandoned ones have servitor golems that repair or something, according to a mindless, but reasonably thorough plan created by the ancient spellcasters who built it.

What about the challenges that aren't dungeon based, but are combat based? Surely some of those are, ultimately, a five minute workday? If not, at what point does it beggar belief that every single thing just happens to have a moderately decent pacing betwixt long rests?

Anyway, I don't know if it's even a problem, as long as the players don't have full agency to dictate this all the time throughout a campaign. But they will have enough agency to dictate this some of the times through a campaign, and there's no in-game reason not to.

[tokek]

Yea so here's the problem. If it's some lost dungeon inhabited by mindless things and beasts, then this is metagaming, and pretty cheesy. The beasts shouldn't team up, or form a party, or rebuild walls. That's stupid.
On the other hand, if it's a dungeon that has some sentient inhabitants, sure, they're gonna lay traps, bar doors, prepare ambushes. Then you're good.



Special case is special. The dungeon entirely inhabited by mindless dumb things can exist and will be mindlessly dumb. Honestly I'd struggle to make it fun as anything more than a one-off as its such a limiting constraint. Even super-dumb things like slimes might reproduce in the additional time they are granted.

Also I think you were taking my Tucker's Kobolds a little literally. The spirit of the comment was that in the game decisions usually have consequences. In the case of an entirely mindless set of enemies too dumb to react then maybe actions and decisions have no consequences but I am not a fan of that - decisions having consequences is very much core to how I like to run the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

Or none at all. The sound might end at the radius of the damage, being directed inwards. Like Booming Blade. OK, hadn't considered it like that, but then, none of my players use booming blade. To me, thunder damage ought to make noise. (Good point on Knock).

Thunderclap is splat though. I wouldn't consider it an exception that proves the general rule for PHB spells, meaning ruling out 100ft as a reasonable distance. 120ft is reasonable for a spell that is significantly louder than yelling/screaming at full volume.
Fair point.

(Thunderwave and Knock's 300ft are the exceptions that prove the rule though. Unsurprisingly. That requires a massively loud noise. The spells should really deafen anybody close.) heh 1d4 rounds of deafened condition on a failed save? [/QUOTE] Ringing in ears?

Random encounter checks and/or procedural content are the opposite adversarial. Preplanned notes for logical consequences of the enemies reaction to lair invasion and retreat of the enemy generally aren't adversarial. Both are common components in published adventures, both old school and modern. The system explicitly encourages this play style in several places in the DMG. Yep.

- police the adventuring day so it's in scope, probably by taking away player agency.
- modify the rest system using one of the variant rules or a homebrew one.
- do nothing then kvetch online about how the system is "broken" when their inaction has caused the problem.
Amen, Deacon!

5MWD is a problem. {snip} 5MWD is bad encounter design even if everyone can nova. Especially if everyone can nova Yeah. Our sessions are slow, due to on line play, but I don't mind the encounter and the adventure day bleeding over into multiple sessions. (A reason to love the Giants campaign).

Special case is special. The dungeon entirely inhabited by mindless dumb things can exist and will be mindlessly dumb. Traps, green slimes, animated armor, falling ceilings, various magical statues that come to life ... heck, there's a whole sub adventure in salt marsh that does this. It's on an island and it's got some nice treasure.


The spirit of the comment was that in the game decisions usually have consequences. Yes, I have three different sets of assassins put together to attack the party in one of the campaigns I run (they just handled one of them recently) because they have now ticked off
a demon lord,
a major (in the game world) group,
a local kingdom's whose agents just made it home (die roll) to report on how their efforts are causing problems.
On the bright side, one of their allies just made it to the capital of their kingdom to report, and that will include praise for their efforts ...

[verbatim]

Fix it so you can't dip for armor trivially. Yes, that probably means fixing the wording by either saying "you can only cast <class> spells in armor that <class> gave you". So those cleric subclasses that give heavy armor? Great. You can cast cleric spells in heavy armor. But wizard spells can't be cast in any armor. Or maybe by changing how armor proficiency works.


This is a step in the right direction I think, although I will note that the relative value of Githzerai as a race will skyrocket due to getting Shield as a racial spell (which is addressed in OP's full post, to be clear)... speaking of which, imo:

Shield is too much. IMO could become either + PB/2 or +PB requires open hand. Maybe explicitly prevent it from stacking with Shield (armor)?
Bump Silvery Barbs up to a 2nd level spellslot.
Sleet Storm/Spirit Guardians/Plant Growth/Difficult Terrain Spells: Shouldn't stack
Controversial: Knock some good spells off of the Wizard's spell list. Off the top of my head I'm thinking Web, Misty Step, Rhime's Binding Ice, Remove Curse
Pass Without Trace should just be advantage on Stealth and maybe Sleight of Hand checks instead of +10.
Spirit Guardians would probably be more fun if you tuned the upcast damage scaling down slightly, make it not stack with other movement dividers, and then make it also (slightly) scale up range.
Knock should step on Rogue's toes less, maybe make it so that it makes the next ability check to do the thing +10?
Silence should either allow a save or be a higher level spellslot. Hypnotic Pattern should allow a save, be bumped up a level, or inflict dazed instead (upcast to increase the penalty?). Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings need to be reworked in terms of how many you can summon at once.
Wish loses the open ended stuff in the wording describing things that can be done that aren't spells, but DM can do whatever.

Kill these spells: Simulacrum, Magic Jar, Nystul's

[GeneralVryth]

This is a step in the right direction I think, although I will note that the relative value of Githzerai as a race will skyrocket due to getting Shield as a racial spell (which is addressed in OP's full post, to be clear)... speaking of which, imo:

Shield is too much. IMO could become either + PB/2 or +PB requires open hand. Maybe explicitly prevent it from stacking with Shield (armor)?
Bump Silvery Barbs up to a 2nd level spellslot.
Sleet Storm/Spirit Guardians/Plant Growth/Difficult Terrain Spells: Shouldn't stack
Controversial: Knock some good spells off of the Wizard's spell list. Off the top of my head I'm thinking Web, Misty Step, Rhime's Binding Ice, Remove Curse
Pass Without Trace should just be advantage on Stealth and maybe Sleight of Hand checks instead of +10.
Spirit Guardians would probably be more fun if you tuned the upcast damage scaling down slightly, make it not stack with other movement dividers, and then make it also (slightly) scale up range.
Knock should step on Rogue's toes less, maybe make it so that it makes the next ability check to do the thing +10?
Silence should either allow a save or be a higher level spellslot. Hypnotic Pattern should allow a save, be bumped up a level, or inflict dazed instead (upcast to increase the penalty?). Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings need to be reworked in terms of how many you can summon at once.
Wish loses the open ended stuff in the wording describing things that can be done that aren't spells, but DM can do whatever.

Kill these spells: Simulacrum, Magic Jar, Nystul's


Shield does require a free hand, at least is has a somatic component. If someone is investing to get around this (warcaster) how is it much different from Defensive Duelist?

There is no reason to remove those spells from the Wizard's spells list.

Knock has a pretty major downside in the loud noise it gives off. Also, spending a second level spell slot for something a Rogue should be able to do for free, or in many cases anyone with a crowbar, is already a lot and pretty niche.

Silence you can move out of, and mostly targets casters. Why add the save effect?

Wish has always been special, and while I would re-structure it, especially the backlash effect, I think it's conceptually fine in the category of most powerful spells that can be used.

Simulacrum needs to go or get a serious overhaul.

The rest I am unsure about.

[sithlordnergal]

This is a step in the right direction I think, although I will note that the relative value of Githzerai as a race will skyrocket due to getting Shield as a racial spell (which is addressed in OP's full post, to be clear)... speaking of which, imo:

Shield is too much. IMO could become either + PB/2 or +PB requires open hand. Maybe explicitly prevent it from stacking with Shield (armor)?
Bump Silvery Barbs up to a 2nd level spellslot.
Sleet Storm/Spirit Guardians/Plant Growth/Difficult Terrain Spells: Shouldn't stack
Controversial: Knock some good spells off of the Wizard's spell list. Off the top of my head I'm thinking Web, Misty Step, Rhime's Binding Ice, Remove Curse
Pass Without Trace should just be advantage on Stealth and maybe Sleight of Hand checks instead of +10.
Spirit Guardians would probably be more fun if you tuned the upcast damage scaling down slightly, make it not stack with other movement dividers, and then make it also (slightly) scale up range.
Knock should step on Rogue's toes less, maybe make it so that it makes the next ability check to do the thing +10?
Silence should either allow a save or be a higher level spellslot. Hypnotic Pattern should allow a save, be bumped up a level, or inflict dazed instead (upcast to increase the penalty?). Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings need to be reworked in terms of how many you can summon at once.
Wish loses the open ended stuff in the wording describing things that can be done that aren't spells, but DM can do whatever.

Kill these spells: Simulacrum, Magic Jar, Nystul's


Ehhh, I kinda have some thoughts:

- Don't mess with Shield. The Shield spell isn't the core problem that you're facing. The issue are Wizards in Heavy Armor. An Eldritch Knight SHOULD have the highest AC by mixing magic and armor, and Shield is perfectly fine with Mage Armor. It ONLY becomes a problem when you have a Fighter/Wizard wearing Plate Armor, carrying a Shield, with War Caster, and the Defense Fighting Style. I.E. it only breaks when players specifically build to break it.

- For the difficult terrain spells, they don't stack. At all. The only one that CAN stack is Plant Growth, but that's because it doesn't make Difficult Terrain. I feel like that's more than fair since Plant Growth only really works in areas with normal plants. The rest though? spells like Sleet Storm/Spirit Guardians/Spike Growth/ect? They don't stack, they just make Difficult Terrain which doesn't stack with itself.

- Spirit Guardians is also perfectly fine with the damage. Its a 3rd level spell, and really the only damaging spell Clerics have outside of Guiding Bolt, Inflict Wounds, and Spiritual Weapon. Its also on par with other 3rd level Concentration spells, like Call Lightning, Spirit Shroud, Summon Lesser Demon, ect. Now, it does outperform Hunger of Hadar...but lets face it. Hunger of Hadar is a terrible spell. A 3rd level Warlock only spell that only deals 4d6 and doesn't scale? That is a bad spell.

- I think Web and Remove Curse are fine being on the Wizard's spell list. They're thematic enough to be on a Wizard's spell list, and are some of the first spells I think of when I think "A wizard casts this". Plus they're good spells, but far from being super strong. I also think Misty Step is fine since its going to be a Conjuration Wizard's first teleportation spell. I'd be fine with making Rimes Binding Ice Druid only.

- I'd love for Silence to have a save. It'd keep my players from using it so much XD I think Hypnotic Pattern is fine though. Its kind of like the Fear spell. In theory powerful, and certainly dangerous when used against the right targets. But by the time you get it, Charm immunity starts becoming a thing.

- While I am personally fine with Conjure Animals, I can fully see why DMs want to rework it. Lower the number of creatures summoned and its fine. Leave the scaling though.

- Why do you dislike Nystul's Magic Aura? Probably one of the coolest spells in the game, as both a player and a DM. And all it does is make one thing seem like another thing. Do you know how many cursed items I've hidden with that spell.

- I'd leave Wish alone for a two reasons:

Wish doesn't actually break anything. It lets you do some cool things, sure, but the risks are large enough to make up for it.
The open ended stuff actually is part of the charm/fun of Wish. It gives players a spell that could do a ton, but makes it a potential Monkey's Paw


-----

EDIT: As for casting in armor, I have a suggestion. Normally I don't like to bring 3.5 into 5e, but look to 3.5. If you're an Arcane Caster wearing armor, you have a chance that your spell will fail. And it fully depends on the armor you're wearing. Wearing Studded Leather with a Buckler? 20% chance that your spell will simply fizzle and fail. Wearing Full Plate and carrying a Tower Shield? You best hope luck is on your side, cause you have an 85% chance of your spell failing.

It also makes the components more important. If there are no Somatic Components then there is no spell failure chance. And you can add special abilities that allow certain classes to ignore the spell failure. Maybe at level 6 your GISH subclasses like the Valor Bard, Hexblade, and Eldritch Knight get to ignore the spell failure chance. That way they can still wear armor and be a GISH, but its far enough that you can't really take a dip to deal with it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Shield is too much. IMO could become either + PB/2 or +PB requires open hand.
+PB works for me.

Maybe explicitly prevent it from stacking with Shield (armor)?
Sure

Bump Silvery Barbs up to a 2nd level spell slot. Remove from game.

Controversial: Knock some good spells off of the Wizard's spell list.
Off the top of my head I'm thinking Web, Misty Step, Rhime's Binding Ice, Remove Curse
No tp all of that, but maybe re-tweak Rhime's Binding ice a bit.

Pass Without Trace should just be advantage on Stealth and maybe Sleight of Hand checks instead of +10. No.

Hypnotic Pattern should allow a save
It already has one. And there are immune to charm creatures, as well as creatures who have adv on the save.

Conjure Animals/Conjure Woodland Beings need to be reworked in terms of how many you can summon at once. If you simply replace them with Tasha's summon spells the problem goes away, but some of the really fun cheese gets axed. :smallfrown:

Kill these spells: Simulacrum, Magic Jar, Nystul's
No.

[verbatim]

Shield does require a free hand, at least is has a somatic component. If someone is investing to get around this (warcaster) how is it much different from Defensive Duelist?
It gives a greater bonus for most of the game and isn't just for one hit (the negative being that it costs a resource). I'd be okay with buffing Defensive Dualist slightly instead.



Knock has a pretty major downside in the loud noise it gives off. Also, spending a second level spell slot for something a Rogue should be able to do for free, or in many cases anyone with a crowbar, is already a lot and pretty niche.
The noise is the balancing factor atm. Maybe something where if you fail the check the sound goes off but it's opened anyways? That could add interesting stakes and encourage teamwork. Alternatively obviously it just stays as is.


Wish has always been special, and while I would re-structure it, especially the backlash effect, I think it's conceptually fine in the category of most powerful spells that can be used.
IMO the granting resistance needs to go if there is going to be a way to cast it without the risk of permanently losing it. This is obviously an edge case because barely anyone plays level 20 and stuff being broken is inherently part of the charm but the whole party getting resistance to everything without a risk attached provided they spend enough feels like too much to me.




- Why do you dislike Nystul's Magic Aura? Probably one of the coolest spells in the game, as both a player and a DM. And all it does is make one thing seem like another thing. Do you know how many cursed items I've hidden with that spell.

"You change the way the target appears to spells and magical effects that detect creature types, such as a paladin's Divine Sense or the trigger of a symbol spell. You choose a creature type and other spells and magical effects treat the target as if it were a creature of that type or of that alignment."

There's probably a different way to word this that makes less people think they can do shenanigans with it, but yeah on second reading I see that it is fine as is, that's my bad.

[ZRN]

- Don't mess with Shield. The Shield spell isn't the core problem that you're facing. The issue are Wizards in Heavy Armor. An Eldritch Knight SHOULD have the highest AC by mixing magic and armor, and Shield is perfectly fine with Mage Armor. It ONLY becomes a problem when you have a Fighter/Wizard wearing Plate Armor, carrying a Shield, with War Caster, and the Defense Fighting Style. I.E. it only breaks when players specifically build to break it.

There are other spells that are probably more impactful overall, but the two that feel the most broken by design to me are Shield and Pass Without Trace.

For PWT, look at Invisibility. When they were writing the 5e spells they knew people were worried about wizards stepping on rogues' toes, so they made an Invisibility spell that is useful for all sorts of things but when it comes to sneaking around, it effectively just gives you advantage on stealth checks. But then they made PWT, which is more than twice as impactful as getting advantage, and it impacts the whole party. At the same level as single-target Invisibility!

For Shield, look at Psi warriors' ability to shield themselves or others: d6 (to d12) + secondary ability mod damage for one psi point, which is worth about one level 1 spell. Compare the shield spell, which not only negates ONE complete hit, it negates hits for the rest of the round... so use it against a dragon and you're preventing potentially tons of damage.

And no, you don't need to be some weird plate-wizard monstrosity to get an overpowered benefit from shield. Anyone with slots (paladin, ranger, cleric...) can get it with a single feat and drastically increase their AC when they need it.

[GeneralVryth]

It gives a greater bonus for most of the game and isn't just for one hit (the negative being that it costs a resource). I'd be okay with buffing Defensive Dualist slightly instead.




For Shield, look at Psi warriors' ability to shield themselves or others: d6 (to d12) + secondary ability mod damage for one psi point, which is worth about one level 1 spell. Compare the shield spell, which not only negates ONE complete hit, it negates hits for the rest of the round... so use it against a dragon and you're preventing potentially tons of damage.

And no, you don't need to be some weird plate-wizard monstrosity to get an overpowered benefit from shield. Anyone with slots (paladin, ranger, cleric...) can get it with a single feat and drastically increase their AC when they need it.

I would be fine if Shield was something something like 3 + spell level above first. I don't think PB is appropriate as something encoding the power of a spell, as that is the whole point of spell level.

As for effects that reduce (or even heal usually) damage at a resource cost, they suck. They have always sucked. I am not sure what the solution is to this but I don't think the solution should be tearing down/removing what's not really the overpowered of a spell. Spending your reaction and a spell slot on something is a pretty significant cost.



The noise is the balancing factor atm. Maybe something where if you fail the check the sound goes off but it's opened anyways? That could add interesting stakes and encourage teamwork. Alternatively obviously it just stays as is.


Doesn't that just make knock better? Right now it's a guaranteed unlock at the cost of a spell slot and loud noise. If you turn it into a role and it unlocks on a failure with a loud noise that seems like a buff. I think the general mindset around knock should change. It's not competing against Rogues. It's competing against the Barbarian with a crowbar that really wants something open now.



IMO the granting resistance needs to go if there is going to be a way to cast it without the risk of permanently losing it. This is obviously an edge case because barely anyone plays level 20 and stuff being broken is inherently part of the charm but the whole party getting resistance to everything without a risk attached provided they spend enough feels like too much to me.


Casting Wish to do anything but emulate a spell of 8th level or below risks losing it. The only work-arounds are simulacrum or maybe a magic item. This is why I would restructure the backlash. Here is how I would do it. First chuck the random chance non-sense something this important shouldn't be left up to chance. Next, using Wish let's a caster briefly play with the fundamentals of reality around them, risking damage to their soul in the process. Before a caster casts wish the DM should inform them of what level soul burn they will incur.
Light Soul Burn: The caster can still cast Wish, but if they incur soul burn again their soul is destroyed, their dead, and they can't come back.
Heavy Soul Burn: If the caster casts Wish again regardless of effect their soul is destroyed, their dead, and they can't come back.
Soul Destruction: The caster's soul is destroyed, they are dead, and they can't come back.

Duplicating a spell of 8th level or lower doesn't risk soul burn.
Using one of the bullet point actions, risks light soul burn depending on the purity of their actions (basically a DM call if they are trying abuse something or it's a genuine need).
Anything else ranges from risking heavy soul burn to soul destruction depending on the scope of the desire and the DMs judgement.

Finally, as it's name suggests soul burn effects one's soul, the method of casting Wish (whether though item or simulacrum) doesn't matter. Dying, and coming back doesn't matter. The only way to cure the damage is through Wish or divine intervention.

[verbatim]

Doesn't that just make knock better? Right now it's a guaranteed unlock at the cost of a spell slot and loud noise. If you turn it into a role and it unlocks on a failure with a loud noise that seems like a buff. I think the general mindset around knock should change. It's not competing against Rogues. It's competing against the Barbarian with a crowbar that really wants something open now.
I'm okay with a buff that lets the Rogue make the actual check. Teamwork makes the team immersion work and whatnot



Casting Wish to do anything but emulate a spell of 8th level or below risks losing it.

Duplicating a spell of 8th level or lower doesn't risk soul burn.
Using one of the bullet point actions, risks light soul burn depending on the purity of their actions (basically a DM call if they are trying abuse something or it's a genuine need).
Anything else ranges from risking heavy soul burn to soul destruction depending on the scope of the desire and the DMs judgement.

Finally, as it's name suggests soul burn effects one's soul, the method of casting Wish (whether though item or simulacrum) doesn't matter. Dying, and coming back doesn't matter. The only way to cure the damage is through Wish or divine intervention.

The 5.5e Playtest had some capstones that could do the bulletpoints without chance of failure. Personally I'm hoping that doesn't make it in. What you have proposed as a replacement would work much better.

[sithlordnergal]

There are other spells that are probably more impactful overall, but the two that feel the most broken by design to me are Shield and Pass Without Trace.

For PWT, look at Invisibility. When they were writing the 5e spells they knew people were worried about wizards stepping on rogues' toes, so they made an Invisibility spell that is useful for all sorts of things but when it comes to sneaking around, it effectively just gives you advantage on stealth checks. But then they made PWT, which is more than twice as impactful as getting advantage, and it impacts the whole party. At the same level as single-target Invisibility!

You might be underestimating Invisibility there. Yes, PWT lets you give the entire group a +10 to stealth, but having a high stealth is not nearly as good as being invisible:

First, Invisibility grants more than just advantage, it makes it impossible to see a creature unless you have a special sense that sees through Invisibility. This means if you're nkt moving and being quiet, you don't need to make Stealth checks to remain unseen.

Second, I am AFB at the moment, but if I remember correctly the DMG suggests that creatures who are blinded and relying on their hearing to make perception checks have Disadvantage on the check. Since Invisibility makes it impossible to see a creature, anyone making a Perception check against you has Disadvantage.

Third, and most important, it doesn't matter how high your stealth is if you don't have cover to hide in/behind. Pass Without Trace does not create cover, or any form of Obscurement. Not even Light Obscurement. Yes, it does say it makes a viel of shadows, but the spell doesn't say that the shadows create any Obscurement like Shadow of Moil or Fog Cloud do. Meaning you could roll a 40 or more and that won't mean anything at all if you have nowhere to hide

PWT isn't an Invisibility replacement. Instwad its used to help parties successfully sneak around when they have party members with Disadvantage to Stealth and a -1 to the check.



For Shield, look at Psi warriors' ability to shield themselves or others: d6 (to d12) + secondary ability mod damage for one psi point, which is worth about one level 1 spell. Compare the shield spell, which not only negates ONE complete hit, it negates hits for the rest of the round... so use it against a dragon and you're preventing potentially tons of damage.

And no, you don't need to be some weird plate-wizard monstrosity to get an overpowered benefit from shield. Anyone with slots (paladin, ranger, cleric...) can get it with a single feat and drastically increase their AC when they need it.

First, I wouldn't compare Shield to the Psi Warrior's ability. They aren't even close to being the same thing. I'd actually compare the Psi Warrior ability with the Lore Bard's Cutting Words, the Abjuration Wizard's shield of HP, or the Battlemaster's Parry.

There's not really an ability outside of Shield of Faith that raises your AC like that...at least, none that I can think of. Well, unless you count the NPC version of Parry.

Next, you might wanna reread Magic Initiate. That's the Feat you're talking about, yeah? You can only cast the spell once per Long Rest unless its on your spell list. Meaning you would need to multiclass in order to get Shield on a Cleric or Paladin.

[Goobahfish]

Random encounter checks and/or procedural content are the opposite adversarial. Preplanned notes for logical consequences of the enemies reaction to lair invasion and retreat of the enemy generally aren't adversarial. Both are common components in published adventures, both old school and modern. The system explicitly encourages this play style in several places in the DMG.

If a DM is using the magic of handwavium / speed of plot, or a static non-living adventuring site, or running a campaign that will naturally tend to be out of scope due to the time frame of the above being set necessarily long, then they've missed an opportunity in the first two cases and they're going to be playing out of scope in all cases. They've got three choices:
- police the adventuring day so it's in scope, probably by taking away player agency.
- modify the rest system using one of the variant rules or a homebrew one.
- do nothing then kvetch online about how the system is "broken" when their inaction has caused the problem.

Indeed. However, I would argue that it kind of rail-roads DMs. You have to constantly have this 'OR ELSE!' structure to your games which for some adventures is fine (the farmer's daughter will be sacrificed if you waste time) but for others is less applicable. So yeah, if they try to long-rest in a dungeon, players can reasonably expect something to go wrong. But there are plenty of 'one-encounter' days which make sense as 'one-encounter days'. Consider bandits on the road. It's not like you are going to have 3 encounters on a 1-day road trip without it becoming a bit ridiculous.


Even if all the PCs are able to nova the 5MWD is a problem. I discovered that early on in my running of stuff for westmarches.

DnD combat tends to snowball: a bad roll leads to a bad situation that it’s increasingly hard to recover from. It’s the action economy.

If you compress the day down to one combat and maybe 5 turns but each turn has its impact dialled up to 11 because of nova-ing then losing a turn to a bad roll is way more impact than it really should be. One bad roll can snowball into TPK because you can’t nova your way back into the fight - it was balanced on the assumption of nova every turn anyway or it was trivial easy-mode.

In a normal adventuring day PCs can’t go full throttle every turn because they will run out of gas. Also the daily budget for monsters is spread out over many encounters. When you have a bit of bad luck there are fewer monsters in your face to exploit it and the rest of the party can burn more gas for a couple of turns to recover the situation.

5MWD is bad encounter design even if everyone can nova. Especially if everyone can nova

I agree with this... generally. It depends on the time-scale of the nova-ing though. If by nova we mean that players have a few once/combat abilities which they can use judiciously throughout the combat, then yes, when they fail to 'go-off' then it can be problematic.

The main issue with nova-ing though is when the timescale is on a per-day rather than per-encounter basis. Moreover, when 'nova-ing' isn't so much nova-ing as intended mechanics.

Take for example. If Action Surge was once/day rather than once/encounter, I'm not sure it would really encourage a 5MWD meaningfully. The fighter is still pretty capable 90% the time without Action Surge. It is a cool boost, but not essential.

OTOH, Wizards/Sorcerers/Druids/Clerics tend have 90% of their utility tied to long rests. As such, you have two choices. Either don't really play your class (i.e., don't cast spells) and pew-pew cantrips until you are close to borked OR burn your spells out and rely on pew-pew cantrips for the rest of the day OR 5MWD. The last one is the most fun because you get to use your spells.

If spells were more plentiful, but less nova-ish it would likely fix a lot of the issues with 5MWD. You could still have once/day abilities to conserve, but they shouldn't represent more than... 10-20% of a classes utility.

Where I am going with this is something like...

If Full casters were more like a warlock/caster hybrid.

Spitballing... short rests are 5 minutes. You get 1 spell at max level, and 3 at sub-max level every Short Rest. Short Rests take 5 minutes so they are essentially 1/encounter. You also get... I dunno 2 max-level spells per day as a buffer for 'clutch moments'. Spells in general are slightly tuned down.

You end up with player basically coming to each encounter being able to do 'their thing' or at least something approximating it. But for the 'bigger encounter' they can burn their daily. This sounds a lot like 4e TBH but it actually works pretty well IME.

[KorvinStarmast]

I would be fine if Shield was something something like 3 + spell level above first. Or two plus spell level. :smallsmile:

[PhoenixPhyre]

My current plan for shield is to change it radically. I'm giving everyone the ability to spend Stamina (a resource everyone has, but martials have more of that fuels their non-magical abilities) to add +Proficiency to their AC against one attack as a reaction (requires wearing armor or mage armor). Although it's actually buffed--if the attack misses, you get to make a riposte attack as part of the reaction. My current plan for shield is to make it a long-duration buff that allows the caster to use Aether (basically spell points, what casters will use to cast spells) instead of Stamina (which they have a lot less of).

But I'm greatly reducing the armor scaling in general. No more heavy armored full casters--even the clerics are downgraded to light/medium armor and mage armor is only 12 + DEX. And no armor dips--you can't cast spells in any armor the class didn't give you. And I'm removing all +X items except for one, non-magical case--I'm introducing Masterwork armor which has two effects--it reduces the cost of that Defensive Duelist reaction (called Deflect) for all armor types and for heavy/medium armor it increases the DEX cap by 1. Yes, that means you can add 1 DEX in heavy armor. The only other +AC thing is shield of faith, which won't stack with actual shields (it basically acts as a shield that doesn't require proficiency but does require someone's concentration).

[Witty Username]

For shield specifically, I am perfectly comfortable with it being removed from the game.
At its normal use case, it is must have to the point of game warping, and any use outside of that is outright game breaking. And nerfing it to lower degrees assumed it serves a nessasary function, which I don't believe it has.

[GeneralVryth]

For shield specifically, I am perfectly comfortable with it being removed from the game.
At its normal use case, it is must have to the point of game warping, and any use outside of that is outright game breaking. And nerfing it to lower degrees assumed it serves a nessasary function, which I don't believe it has.

it serves a pretty important function of giving Sorcerers and Wizards, a fairly straight forward way of converting spell slots to survive-ability when they are in a tight spot and need to buy time. I don't get this game breaking view on it. It's a 4 time per day spell at most, unless you are talking higher level characters that don't mind burning their second level slots.

[Witty Username]

it serves a pretty important function of giving Sorcerers and Wizards, a fairly straight forward way of converting spell slots to survive-ability when they are in a tight spot and need to buy time. I don't get this game breaking view on it. It's a 4 time per day spell at most, unless you are talking higher level characters that don't mind burning their second level slots.

Mage armor serves this purpose just fine as far as I can tell, as well as other features of the system from the specific like defensive duelist to the general such as the dodge and disengage actions. Not to mention their are other ways to defend oneself in combat such as battlefield control, proper positioning, and conventional disruption by debuffing and inflicting negative conditions.

[ZRN]

You might be underestimating Invisibility there. Yes, PWT lets you give the entire group a +10 to stealth, but having a high stealth is not nearly as good as being invisible:

First, Invisibility grants more than just advantage, it makes it impossible to see a creature unless you have a special sense that sees through Invisibility. This means if you're nkt moving and being quiet, you don't need to make Stealth checks to remain unseen.

Second, I am AFB at the moment, but if I remember correctly the DMG suggests that creatures who are blinded and relying on their hearing to make perception checks have Disadvantage on the check. Since Invisibility makes it impossible to see a creature, anyone making a Perception check against you has Disadvantage.

Third, and most important, it doesn't matter how high your stealth is if you don't have cover to hide in/behind. Pass Without Trace does not create cover, or any form of Obscurement. Not even Light Obscurement. Yes, it does say it makes a viel of shadows, but the spell doesn't say that the shadows create any Obscurement like Shadow of Moil or Fog Cloud do. Meaning you could roll a 40 or more and that won't mean anything at all if you have nowhere to hide

PWT isn't an Invisibility replacement. Instwad its used to help parties successfully sneak around when they have party members with Disadvantage to Stealth and a -1 to the check.

I tried to imply this in my statement without getting into the details, but I actually really like the implementation of Invisibility specifically because it does have the advantages you mention that dovetail nicely with, but don't eclipse, the stealth skill. So they did a good job of crafting an Invisibility spell that doesn't just obsolete a core rogue skill. But then they went ahead and made PWT which clearly DOES just obsolete a core rogue skill. Even ignoring the benefit to the rest of the party, a druid with PWT is better at stealth than almost any rogue, and a ranger or rogue is potentially WAY better.



First, I wouldn't compare Shield to the Psi Warrior's ability. They aren't even close to being the same thing. I'd actually compare the Psi Warrior ability with the Lore Bard's Cutting Words, the Abjuration Wizard's shield of HP, or the Battlemaster's Parry.

There's not really an ability outside of Shield of Faith that raises your AC like that...at least, none that I can think of. Well, unless you count the NPC version of Parry.

Yes, that's the point. They made a spell with a unique mechanic (because that's what spells are, bundles of unique mechanics), and surprise surprise, this one happened to be way better than any of the other options that are supposed to be roughly equivalent in overall power (as in, worth about a level 1 spell slot).


Next, you might wanna reread Magic Initiate. That's the Feat you're talking about, yeah? You can only cast the spell once per Long Rest unless its on your spell list. Meaning you would need to multiclass in order to get Shield on a Cleric or Paladin.

I'm thinking of Magic Initiate in the OneDND playtest, but there are semi-official workarounds to get it without multi-classing in current 5e as well.

[Slipjig]

Or none at all. The sound might end at the radius of the damage, being directed inwards. Like Booming Blade.

Thunderclap is splat though. I wouldn't consider it an exception that proves the general rule for PHB spells, meaning ruling out 100ft as a reasonable distance. 120ft is reasonable for a spell that is significantly louder than yelling/screaming at full volume.

...? If we're on a football field, I guarantee that if I'm "screaming at full volume" on one goal line, someone standing on the other goal line will have no problem hearing me. That's 300'. They may not be able to understand me clearly, but they will definitely hear me.

This obviously changes if there is a high degree of ambient noise.

[Unoriginal]

...? If we're on a football field, I guarantee that if I'm "screaming at full volume" on one goal line, someone standing on the other goal line will have no problem hearing me. That's 300'. They may not be able to understand me clearly, but they will definitely hear me.

That is a flat, open field (sometime surrounded by walls and a roof wide enough to create echos), and presumably without other noises making it harder to hear.

I don't think the argument is that travelers on a road in the middle of a field landscape can't hear PCs having a battle 300ft further on the same road.

Forests, cities and inside buildings are a whole different matter. In some houses, you can blast music in one room, open all the doors, and still be unable to hear the music in a different room that is less than 100ft away

[GeneralVryth]

Mage armor serves this purpose just fine as far as I can tell, as well as other features of the system from the specific like defensive duelist to the general such as the dodge and disengage actions. Not to mention their are other ways to defend oneself in combat such as battlefield control, proper positioning, and conventional disruption by debuffing and inflicting negative conditions.

Mage armor, serves the role of armor, and it's a static bonus. Shield is a burst bonus that is temporary, they serve very difference roles.

[Sigreid]

Mage armor serves this purpose just fine as far as I can tell, as well as other features of the system from the specific like defensive duelist to the general such as the dodge and disengage actions. Not to mention their are other ways to defend oneself in combat such as battlefield control, proper positioning, and conventional disruption by debuffing and inflicting negative conditions.
I don't personally see it breaking the game, though it certainly can shift an individual fight. If I did have an issue with it I would either set it to an AC override like it was in 1e or have it give the same +2 to AC as a normal shield provided you weren't already using a shield. I think it's a good thing to have magic missile, an excellent 1st level attack spell having a 1st level counter.

[AHF]

I do think a lot of the quality of life changes have been huge factors in changing the caster / martial balance I’ve the years. I would include the following among those:

* You can cast any kind of spell in any kind of armor as long as you are proficient by any means. Proficiency unrelated to your spell casting class is very easy to come by through multiclassing, feats, and racial options.

* Spells are no longer subject to being interrupted while being cast even if the caster is in melee combat.

* Casters all get effectively spontaneous casting now where they no longer have to prepare specific spells for their spell slots. They just pick a versatile list of spells and can use their spell slots in any of them that are level appropriate.

* Caster hit points have increased (die size for some and con bonus for all past a +2).

* Cantrips give casters a baseline of Magic that can be used to save slots and after all slots have been used. Now the damage cantrips also scale to remain relevant beyond very early levels.

Martials haven’t been given anything like these base mechanic increases which means that even if spells never changed from edition to edition that casters would be dramatically more powerful in 5e than they were in earlier editions. To the contrary, the bounded accuracy design philosophy has probably led to the debuffing of a key martial resource: magic items. You no longer have the +5, etc. weapons which used to be found in the base DMG. You also have martials being unable to use many caster focused items while casters can use (with mere proficiency) any of the martial focused items.

In any event, I do think discussions around spell power need to be had within the backdrop of all of these others buffs as well. (Example: the shield spell discussed above is wayyyy less problematic if you can’t cast it unless you are wearing armor allowable by the spell casting class that gave you access to the spell - ie wizard or sorcerer armor proficiency.)

[sithlordnergal]

Mage armor serves this purpose just fine as far as I can tell, as well as other features of the system from the specific like defensive duelist to the general such as the dodge and disengage actions. Not to mention their are other ways to defend oneself in combat such as battlefield control, proper positioning, and conventional disruption by debuffing and inflicting negative conditions.

I'm actually gonna say there aren't as many ways to defend yourself as you might think. It doesn't matter how much battlefield control, positioning, conditions, or anything you wanna inflict. 5e doesn't have any form of actual aggro, nor does it have a built in way to avoid being targeted.

And I speak from experience with this. If a DM wants to target you, specifically, they can and will. I have literally stood 60 feet away from an enemy as a Bard, with a Barbarian, Fighter, my Dancing Object and Spike Growth between us. The DM chose to tank three attacks of opportunity and move through the Spike Growth just to attack me. As a seemingless mindless monster with 2 Int. Because the DM knew I was a bigger threat with spells.

Unless 5e suddenly decides to add mechanics that force a DM to target a specific creature, all of that extra stuff doesn't matter one bit. It comes down to AC and HP. And low AC is worthless once enemies have a +12 and above to hit.

[rel]

Spellcasters are broken because class specific powers which are not directly connected to dealing and taking HP damage are traditionally realised using spells.

Which means if you want to solve any challenge that is not of the form 'deal X HP damage to thing Y' using class specific powers (as opposed to things like ability checks, equipment, good roleplay, backgrounds, etc which are available to any class) you need to be a spellcaster.

Even at the beginning of the game, the difference is noticable, and as the PC's level up it only becomes more striking. Until the magic users can raise the dead, teleport across a continent and divine the future, while the muggles can kill things good. something the magic users are also pretty capable of.

Eliminating problem spells isn't going to address that underlying issue.

[KorvinStarmast]

For shield specifically, I am perfectly comfortable with it being removed from the game. I am not. If you feel that the flat AC bonuds 5 is out of line for bounded accuracy, then drop it to 3 or 4 and be done with it. Also:

I think it's a good thing to have magic missile, an excellent 1st level attack spell having a 1st level counter.
Concur. It blocks magic missiles.

I'm actually gonna say there aren't as many ways to defend yourself as you might think. And low AC is worthless once enemies have a +12 and above to hit. It's of dubious use if the To Hit is only +8, IME.

[Amechra]

Spellcasters are broken because class specific powers which are not directly connected to dealing and taking HP damage are traditionally realised using spells.

Heck, a lot of mechanics related to dealing HP damage are also spellcaster-specific, or were designed with spellcasters in mind. Looking at you, damage types.


I do think a lot of the quality of life changes have been huge factors in changing the caster / martial balance I’ve the years. I would include the following among those: [SNIPPED FOR LENGTH]

There are a bunch of even subtler adjustments that ended up boosting spellcasters mostly accidentally. One of the big ones is the changes in how saving throws work - when WotC made 3e, they made the decision to compress the number of saves down (from five ideosyncratic ones to basically just Con/Dex/Wis: The Saving Throws) and decided that each creature should have a number of "bad" saves that hardly scale at all. This introduced a minigame of "attack the bad save" to the game... which coincidentally is a minigame that only spellcasters really get to play, since they're the ones that get to customize their attack suite. Oops!

Oh, sure, martial characters might be able to force saves as well... but if you step back and look at their options they either tend to be saves that creatures with high AC will tend to be good at (running into a creature with good AC that's weak to grappling is unlikely, since you can use the better of your Strength or Dexterity to defend against it) or they're a rider on attack rolls (so you need to succeed on a roll and your target needs to fail one for them to work).

[Goobahfish]

I am not. If you feel that the flat AC bonuds 5 is out of line for bounded accuracy, then drop it to 3 or 4 and be done with it.

I mean... with bounded accuracy, any arbitrary AC bonus is kind of broken. I honestly think the correct implementation would have been closer to:

For the duration your AC = 17 + spell level or some such. That way it still fulfils its Wizardish utility (i.e., AC... 12-14 goes to 18ish) but really has no synergy with characters already in medium/heavy armour.

[GeneralVryth]

I mean... with bounded accuracy, any arbitrary AC bonus is kind of broken. I honestly think the correct implementation would have been closer to:

For the duration your AC = 17 + spell level or some such. That way it still fulfils its Wizardish utility (i.e., AC... 12-14 goes to 18ish) but really has no synergy with characters already in medium/heavy armour.

Why make it bad for those with higher AC? Its effects are temporary, and once your AC is high enough Shield's effectiveness decreases. The best average case scenario is Shield blocks 1 attack, and on average will be responsible for blocking 25% of additional attacks until the characters turn. So it only really shines if a bunch of opponents are wailing on the user, otherwise it will usually be a 1st level slot to stop 1 attack. There seems to be this assumption that it's always active and available, and the user will always want to use it. The only time that is likely to be the case is late T2+ during 5MWDs. Or is stopping 1 attack thought to be too much for a 1st level spell?

[Witty Username]

Unless 5e suddenly decides to add mechanics that force a DM to target a specific creature, all of that extra stuff doesn't matter one bit. It comes down to AC and HP. And low AC is worthless once enemies have a +12 and above to hit.

That will depend on what you mean by low. From this comment that would be AC 16, standard monk AC, but also AC for caster using mage armor which would be what we are using as the example of low AC in this context.
So you would have this problem for monks, wizards, sorcerers, rogues and bards?
But let us say we keep shield as is, just using shield gets us to AC 18, or the same a plate. This is already good AC for low level play.
And then we have mage armor, heavy armor and shield a such on top of that.

I would argue shield alone is already powerful enough to be problematic, and reducing its value doesn't sort its problems outside of that. Even things like armor restrictions don't effect things like EK or hexblade.

It is rare when silvery barbs is healtier for the game, and shield is one of those cases.

[rel]

Heck, a lot of mechanics related to dealing HP damage are also spellcaster-specific, or were designed with spellcasters in mind. Looking at you, damage types.


Yeah, damage types, AoE's, effects targeting defences other than AC, unique defensive powers... A good argument can be made for spellcasters being better even within the scope of a combat challenge.

But I prefer not to make that argument. Because, even if we take it as given that mundanes are every bit as effective an interesting to play within the scope of combat as spellcasters, it doesn't matter.
Even under that assumption, spellcasting is still disproportionately impactful to the game because it's the only way to access class specific powers to contribute to any challenge that isn't combat.

[stoutstien]

Why make it bad for those with higher AC? Its effects are temporary, and once your AC is high enough Shield's effectiveness decreases. The best average case scenario is Shield blocks 1 attack, and on average will be responsible for blocking 25% of additional attacks until the characters turn. So it only really shines if a bunch of opponents are wailing on the user, otherwise it will usually be a 1st level slot to stop 1 attack. There seems to be this assumption that it's always active and available, and the user will always want to use it. The only time that is likely to be the case is late T2+ during 5MWDs. Or is stopping 1 attack thought to be too much for a 1st level spell?

Because mitigation via avoidance isn't linear. Unless you are only getting hit on a nat 20, every point in AC is worth more than the point before it.

If you roll in the open then shield is usually worth the total damage of the initial attack and the difference between your normal AC abd the shield modified AC for all the following attack. For spell slot value it's obscenely out of the normal curve compared to other spells when attacked with armor. Which is fine for thinks like EK and maybe even half casters but toss it on top of 18-20 passive AC and full progression it's a "must have" spell which translates to a waste if space. It's a false choice.

Which really is the rub for spells. It's a combination of the fact it has no governing factors and is also the most constant growing subsystem. Shield could be seen as perfectly ok spell but if they wanted to introduce a new option that was similar it can only fall into 3 categories.
- too weak therefore never used. Dead space
-too strong. Replaces shield and that becomes dead space.
- redundant therefore dead space.

[Tanarii]

If you roll in the open then shield is usually worth the total damage of the initial attack and the difference between your normal AC abd the shield modified AC for all the following attack.
Honestly they could just remove the AC bonus entirely and skip straight to "the attack misses" and it'd be the same effect for the primary impact for most arcane casters IMX.

That's not to say it isn't highly useful 'oh crap' button if you get ambushed from behind by a mob of less damaging enemies, or they just push past the melee wall. Being roughly on-par with a MA+Shield AC for 1 round is very nice in that situation, but someone better do something fast to regain control of the situation. But being able to 'Nope!' an unexpected dozer of a hit once from a miniboss is gold. Plus regaining control of the tactical situation is often a lot easier if it's just vs one creature.

[GeneralVryth]

Because mitigation via avoidance isn't linear. Unless you are only getting hit on a nat 20, every point in AC is worth more than the point before it.

If you roll in the open then shield is usually worth the total damage of the initial attack and the difference between your normal AC abd the shield modified AC for all the following attack. For spell slot value it's obscenely out of the normal curve compared to other spells when attacked with armor. Which is fine for thinks like EK and maybe even half casters but toss it on top of 18-20 passive AC and full progression it's a "must have" spell which translates to a waste if space. It's a false choice.

Which really is the rub for spells. It's a combination of the fact it has no governing factors and is also the most constant growing subsystem. Shield could be seen as perfectly ok spell but if they wanted to introduce a new option that was similar it can only fall into 3 categories.
- too weak therefore never used. Dead space
-too strong. Replaces shield and that becomes dead space.
- redundant therefore dead space.

That's only true if you compare each the value of each point to the point before it, or looking at the endurance effects over the course of an adventuring day. But the latter isn't applicable because of Shield's short duration, that also makes it an issue for the former as well (as that kind of comparison only makes sense in a long duration).

For example let's examine 3 cases:

Case 1: A character that gets hit on a 11+ from a given opponent. They get hit 50% of the time.
Case 2: A character that gets hit on a 13+ from a given opponent. They get hit 40% of the time.
Case 3: A character that gets hit on a 17+ from a given opponent. They get hit 20% of the time.

If in each case the character gets attacked 20 times for an average of 10 damage a hit (ignoring the effects of crits) you get:

Case 1: Takes on average 100 damage, or 50 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.
Case 2: Takes on average 80 damage, or 30 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.
Case 3: Takes on average 40 damage, or 10 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.

In case 1 and 2 (the lower armor cases), shield is responsible for reducing the incoming damage by 50, in Case 3 (the really high armor case), it's only 30.

Now if you look at the damage reduced in terms of damage that would have otherwise been taken (how you get the super-linear argument) the cases are:

Case 1: 50/100 or shield reduced incoming damage by 50%.
Case 2: 50/80 or shield reduced incoming damage by 62.5%.
Case 3: 30/40 or shield reduced incoming damage by 75%.

But those percentages are relatively meaningless in terms of actual play (they would technically have a use if you wanted to compare other reaction based methods of reducing damage, but as we have covered earlier most of those are bad). What actually matters is the damage you take, and the damage you prevent, in which case Shield actually gets weaker at the higher AC ranges because it generates wasted AC for the remaining attacks.

By the way here is an easy competing spell you could add that wouldn't be too weak, strong or redundant:
1st level, reaction, negate the incoming attack.

It's better in the case of fewer, more powerful attacks, weaker against swarms, and clearly not redundant.

[stoutstien]

Honestly they could just remove the AC bonus entirely and skip straight to "the attack misses" and it'd be the same effect for the primary impact for most arcane casters IMX.

That's not to say it isn't highly useful 'oh crap' button if you get ambushed from behind by a mob of less damaging enemies, or they just push past the melee wall. Being roughly on-par with a MA+Shield AC for 1 round is very nice in that situation, but someone better do something fast to regain control of the situation. But being able to 'Nope!' an unexpected dozer of a hit once from a miniboss is gold. Plus regaining control of the tactical situation is often a lot easier if it's just vs one creature.

That is actually what my WIP does. Shield is an instant action to make weaker attacks auto miss but it does limit what can be performed on their next action including potential loss of focus with on going effects.

[KorvinStarmast]

I mean... with bounded accuracy, any arbitrary AC bonus is kind of broken. I honestly think the correct implementation would have been closer to:

For the duration your AC = 17 + spell level or some such. That way it still fulfils its Wizardish utility (i.e., AC... 12-14 goes to 18ish) but really has no synergy with characters already in medium/heavy armour. Hmm, that's a little more like Barkskin, and that is an interesting idea. If you want better protection, it's gonna cost you. :smallsmile:

[GeneralVryth]

Hmm, that's a little more like Barkskin, and that is an interesting idea. If you want better protection, it's gonna cost you. :smallsmile:

Reaction based Barkskin, would get used less often than Barkskin. And well I suspect there was a reason they were looking at re-doing it for One D&D and it's not because it was good.

[stoutstien]

That's only true if you compare each the value of each point to the point before it, or looking at the endurance effects over the course of an adventuring day. But the latter isn't applicable because of Shield's short duration, that also makes it an issue for the former as well (as that kind of comparison only makes sense in a long duration).

For example let's examine 3 cases:

Case 1: A character that gets hit on a 11+ from a given opponent. They get hit 50% of the time.
Case 2: A character that gets hit on a 13+ from a given opponent. They get hit 40% of the time.
Case 3: A character that gets hit on a 17+ from a given opponent. They get hit 20% of the time.

If in each case the character gets attacked 20 times for an average of 10 damage a hit (ignoring the effects of crits) you get:

Case 1: Takes on average 100 damage, or 50 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.
Case 2: Takes on average 80 damage, or 30 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.
Case 3: Takes on average 40 damage, or 10 damage if they use shield the first time they can block a hit.

In case 1 and 2 (the lower armor cases), shield is responsible for reducing the incoming damage by 50, in Case 3 (the really high armor case), it's only 30.

Now if you look at the damage reduced in terms of damage that would have otherwise been taken (how you get the super-linear argument) the cases are:

Case 1: 50/100 or shield reduced incoming damage by 50%.
Case 2: 50/80 or shield reduced incoming damage by 62.5%.
Case 3: 30/40 or shield reduced incoming damage by 75%.

But those percentages are relatively meaningless in terms of actual play (they would technically have a use if you wanted to compare other reaction based methods of reducing damage, but as we have covered earlier most of those are bad). What actually matters is the damage you take, and the damage you prevent, in which case Shield actually gets weaker at the higher AC ranges because it generates wasted AC for the remaining attacks.

By the way here is an easy competing spell you could add that wouldn't be too weak, strong or redundant:
1st level, reaction, negate the incoming attack.

It's better in the case of fewer, more powerful attacks, weaker against swarms, and clearly not redundant.

Avoidance doesn't care about averages because its taking 100% damage and making 0%. It might only have a minor shift in average damage per attack but it makes EHP sky rocket. Going from 55 to 60 % and going from 90 to 95 % are worlds apart. You can't "waste" AC this way because it's +5 at a flat cost and a miss is the only threshold to shoot for.

As for your supposed new spell. It's not the same because it's not interacting with AC. It's avoiding via exclusion . That is a whole different area of mitigation so you'd compare it to blink or mirror image not shield.

[Unoriginal]

Being able to just negate an attack at the cost of a first level spell slot is incredibly overpowered, even if it's reaction-based and as such can only be used once per round.

5e monsters don't have that many attacks per turn. Even against a big group, being able to fully remove a chunk of their action ecenomy by making waste an action is very powerful, far more than an AC boost (since you can still get hit with Shield).

Even if you made so you had to spend the spell slot for this hypothetical spell before the die is rolled rather than in reaction to a hit, it would be much more powerful than the Diviner's Portens feature, since 1. Portens use random numbers, meaning you could still get hit unless you rolled a 1 and 2. you only get 2 Portens a day for most of your career, rather than the ever increasing number of spell slots and methods to recover spell slots that can be used to fuel a 1rst lvl spell.

That hypothetical attack-negating spell would easily be as powerful as Counterspell, at minimum.

[GeneralVryth]

Avoidance doesn't care about averages because its taking 100% damage and making 0%. It might only have a minor shift in average damage per attack but it makes EHP sky rocket. Going from 55 to 60 % and going from 90 to 95 % are worlds apart. You can't "waste" AC this way because it's +5 at a flat cost and a miss is the only threshold to shoot for.

As for your supposed new spell. It's not the same because it's not interacting with AC. It's avoiding via exclusion . That is a whole different area of mitigation so you'd compare it to blink or mirror image not shield.

EHP is where you get the fallacy. EHP is a concept that only makes sense over the course of a day, unless you expect to run out of HP before you do Shield spells.

I didn't pull 20 attacks out of the blue. There is no partial hits in my example, it's all 100% or 0% hits, what changes is the number of hits. Yeah, the example is a little artificial, but it pretty clearly shows Shield reducing in coming damage by a constant amount up to a certain level of AC and then an ever reducing amount.

[stoutstien]

Being able to just negate an attack at the cost of a first level spell slot is incredibly overpowered, even if it's reaction-based and as such can only be used once per round.

5e monsters don't have that many attacks per turn. Even against a big group, being able to fully remove a chunk of their action ecenomy by making waste an action is very powerful, far more than an AC boost (since you can still get hit with Shield).

Even if you made so you had to spend the spell slot for this hypothetical spell before the die is rolled rather than in reaction to a hit, it would be much more powerful than the Diviner's Portens feature, since 1. Portens use random numbers, meaning you could still get hit unless you rolled a 1 and 2. you only get 2 Portens a day for most of your career, rather than the ever increasing number of spell slots and methods to recover spell slots that can be used to fuel a 1rst lvl spell.

That hypothetical attack-negating spell would easily be as powerful as Counterspell, at minimum.

Yes an no. It would be more powerful at one thing but more limited in scope so it becomes less of an automatic button to mash.

Would you use a version that automatically made attack(s) miss if any combination of the following are in play:

if it broke concentration automatically.

Limited spell casting the following turn.

Increased cost of resources spent on remaining actions.

Effectively blinds you for its duration.

Used up more resources exponentially as it prevents more attacks with a growing risk of "bad things" happening.

[Sigreid]

Hmm, that's a little more like Barkskin, and that is an interesting idea. If you want better protection, it's gonna cost you. :smallsmile:
That's just the 1e way it worked.

[GeneralVryth]

Being able to just negate an attack at the cost of a first level spell slot is incredibly overpowered, even if it's reaction-based and as such can only be used once per round.

5e monsters don't have that many attacks per turn. Even against a big group, being able to fully remove a chunk of their action ecenomy by making waste an action is very powerful, far more than an AC boost (since you can still get hit with Shield).

Even if you made so you had to spend the spell slot for this hypothetical spell before the die is rolled rather than in reaction to a hit, it would be much more powerful than the Diviner's Portens feature, since 1. Portens use random numbers, meaning you could still get hit unless you rolled a 1 and 2. you only get 2 Portens a day for most of your career, rather than the ever increasing number of spell slots and methods to recover spell slots that can be used to fuel a 1rst lvl spell.

That hypothetical attack-negating spell would easily be as powerful as Counterspell, at minimum.

Portent is still substantially more powerful, because using it to force fail an attack is one of the worst use cases. Portent shines when applied to saves or generating a Crit when you need it (if you are lucky enough with your initial rolls). Negating a single attack is no where close to as powerful as Counterspell, it's pretty easy to show that to.

A Fireball on average does 28 damage, and is going to hit at least 2, probably 3+ party members. Damage is save. So with 3 targets you get 28*3*1.5 = 126, which you then multiple by save chance. No attack is doing anywhere close to that kind of damage unless you are talking about demigods (and probably not even then, as higher level creates tend to scale with more attacks as much as more powerful attacks). Of course attacks with powerful riders are a different story, but then as discussed in this thread Fireball itself is a relatively tame use of a third level spell (even if it is the pinnacle of damage magic, damage is not where spells are the most dangerous).

[Tanarii]

That hypothetical attack-negating spell would easily be as powerful as Counterspell, at minimum.
It's not a hypothetical. It's what Shield already does.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's not a hypothetical. It's what Shield already does. It's attack mitigating, not attack negating, other than magic missile. (Which technically isn't an "attack" since there is no attack roll :smallbiggrin: )
(As but one example, an attack with a nat 20 can't be negated).

[stoutstien]

EHP is where you get the fallacy. EHP is a concept that only makes sense over the course of a day, unless you expect to run out of HP before you do Shield spells.

I didn't pull 20 attacks out of the blue. There is no partial hits in my example, it's all 100% or 0% hits, what changes is the number of hits. Yeah, the example is a little artificial, but it pretty clearly shows Shield reducing in coming damage by a constant amount up to a certain level of AC and then an ever reducing amount.

It's not a fallacy. EHP is just HP adjusted after mitigation. Shield mitigates HP damage.
Shield's value increases the less often you need to use it because it has a cost in terms of action and slots. Needing to use shield more and thinking it's value increases due to that IS a fallacy.

You don't need to prevent every attack. It's spike damage reduction but only as long as you have the resources available to hammer them down. The higher your AC is the less spikes you need to contend with. That means less concentration checks, less spot healing, less incoming attack with intelligent foes, and less actions you need to conserve.

**Shield alone isn't really a problem but it's not alone. It's shield + AC to block big hits, warcaster and res:con to protect against weak attacks, and high return long duration effects that make the perfect storm of carbon copy spell list/tactics.*

[Tanarii]

It's attack mitigating, not attack negating, other than magic missile. (Which technically isn't an "attack" since there is no attack roll :smallbiggrin: )
(As but one example, an attack with a nat 20 can't be negated).
But you don't cast it unless it's negating an attack.

I mean, I get that from the perspective of "can you choose to mitigate any incoming attack of choice" the answer is no, because the +5 bonus must be enough. But from the perspective of "will it always mitigate an attack when cast" the answer is yes, since it'll only be cast when it is enough.

But good point out, it means Unoriginal's point is valid, there's a difference there.

[GeneralVryth]

It's not a fallacy. EHP is just HP adjusted after mitigation. Shield mitigates HP damage.
Shield's value increases the less often you need to use it because it has a cost in terms of action and slots. Needing to use shield more and thinking it's value increases due to that IS a fallacy.

You don't need to prevent every attack. It's spike damage reduction but only as long as you have the resources available to hammer them down. The higher your AC is the less spikes you need to contend with. That means less concentration checks, less spot healing, less incoming attack with intelligent foes, and less actions you need to conserve.

**Shield alone isn't really a problem but it's not alone. It's shield + AC to block big hits, warcaster and res:con to protect against weak attacks, and high return long duration effects that make the perfect storm of carbon copy spell list/tactics.*

Except the basic EHP calculation is just HP/[Hit Chance], but Shield isn't a clean application to Hit Chance because it doesn't apply over the whole day. Show me what you EHP calculation looks like with Shield. If you do it correctly, you are going to end up with Shield negating a set amount of damage on average, and that amount will decrease at very high AC values (even if the very high AC value has larger EHP value than the lower AC values, which is expected regardless of Shield).

Now bringing concentration in to the conversation (and War Caster and Res:Con by extension), does change things some because concentration doesn't scale cleanly with damage. If you have both of those feats, and slots to burn on Shield, you are investing a lot of resources into being able maintain concentration and not be hit, shouldn't you get a good result from that? Why should a character not be good at the thing they are investing that much resources in to? The next question what spell could be concentrated on that is such a game changer to make the above OP. The answer of course is powerful control spells, but those have arguably always been the problem, and ironically re-enforce my earlier point that just negating a single hit is not as powerful as Portent, because is Portent can be used to force apply a control effect.



But you don't cast it unless it's negating an attack.

I mean, I get that from the perspective of "can you choose to mitigate any incoming attack of choice" the answer is no, because the +5 bonus must be enough. But from the perspective of "will it always mitigate an attack when cast" the answer is yes, since it'll only be cast when it is enough.

But good point out, it means Unoriginal's point is valid, there's a difference there.

More or less what I would have said. Assuming that a given ATTACK will only hit 50% of the time or less, the odds are Shield will be able to negate a HIT is at least 50%, which means most of the time you are just choosing if you want to negate a hit.

[PhoenixPhyre]

How much would shield's worth change under one of the following:

Option 1: shield triggers on being attacked, not on being hit. That is, you have to declare it when the attack is declared, not when you have the result.

Option 2: shield only affects a single attack, not "until start of your next turn" (which could be anywhere from 1 turn to 1 round).

Option 3: A slightly stronger variant of #2--shield only affects the current turn. So if you shield the first of a hydra's attacks, you get the benefit on the rest. But if you shield the last one, it only affects that one attack.

Option 4: shield acts as a physical absorb elements, rather than turning hits into misses. That is, gives resistance and <some bonus> from absorbing the hit.

[tokek]

But you don't cast it unless it's negating an attack.

I mean, I get that from the perspective of "can you choose to mitigate any incoming attack of choice" the answer is no, because the +5 bonus must be enough. But from the perspective of "will it always mitigate an attack when cast" the answer is yes, since it'll only be cast when it is enough.

But good point out, it means Unoriginal's point is valid, there's a difference there.

That depends on game style. Its a far less useful spell in the game I play where the dice are hidden and the DM just narrates the attack hitting. It does not always mitigate the attack in that game. There is nothing in the spell description that says it only triggers when it will make a difference, it can perfectly well trigger on critical hits that no amount of AC will help with.

In other games where we all see the dice Shield spell (and Silvery Barbs) are far more powerful. Strangely I don't fine Absorb Elements much more powerful in those games - its far less dependent on game style in my experience

[stoutstien]

How much would shield's worth change under one of the following:

Option 1: shield triggers on being attacked, not on being hit. That is, you have to declare it when the attack is declared, not when you have the result.

Option 2: shield only affects a single attack, not "until start of your next turn" (which could be anywhere from 1 turn to 1 round).

Option 3: A slightly stronger variant of #2--shield only affects the current turn. So if you shield the first of a hydra's attacks, you get the benefit on the rest. But if you shield the last one, it only affects that one attack.

Option 4: shield acts as a physical absorb elements, rather than turning hits into misses. That is, gives resistance and <some bonus> from absorbing the hit.

I've ran all four of these in some form or fashion.

Option 1: increases "waste" on first attack from unknowns about 25% but players can still guess the odds with minimal table feed back. Attacks just don't have a big enough range for it to be a huge change.

Option 2: probably the easiest adjustment and gives it a more defined role as a "rough" foe counter. Still heavily favors high passive AC.

Option 3: very dependent on how often you run encounters with larger sized forces and if you use shared initiative. Still mostly a boss counter as they tend to have volume of attacks as the primary form of adding damage.

Option 4: probably the best approach. Still takes some damage which prevents combat from needing to be super swingy to be challenging or engaging. Could be a tad slower to resolve.

[Person_Man]

I agree with the basic premise of the original post, but my list of “broken” spells is small and easily fixed. Virtually all ongoing summons and buffs like Foresight or Spiritual Weapon should require Concentration so that they can be stopped by dealing damage and can’t be stacked. (Although I’m fine with leaving ribbons and patches like Find Familiar and Mage Armor as is). In addition to requiring Concentration, Summons and Animate Dead should require an Action to direct your minions (and the minions should be strong or numerous enough for it to be worthwhile) and/or should have costly material components, so that players don’t spam them.

All other spells can be pretty easily balanced by just having a variety of different encounters.

[GeneralVryth]

How much would shield's worth change under one of the following:

Option 1: shield triggers on being attacked, not on being hit. That is, you have to declare it when the attack is declared, not when you have the result.

Option 2: shield only affects a single attack, not "until start of your next turn" (which could be anywhere from 1 turn to 1 round).

Option 3: A slightly stronger variant of #2--shield only affects the current turn. So if you shield the first of a hydra's attacks, you get the benefit on the rest. But if you shield the last one, it only affects that one attack.

Option 4: shield acts as a physical absorb elements, rather than turning hits into misses. That is, gives resistance and <some bonus> from absorbing the hit.


I've ran all four of these in some form or fashion.

Option 1: increases "waste" on first attack from unknowns about 25% but players can still guess the odds with minimal table feed back. Attacks just don't have a big enough range for it to be a huge change.

Option 2: probably the easiest adjustment and gives it a more defined role as a "rough" foe counter. Still heavily favors high passive AC.

Option 3: very dependent on how often you run encounters with larger sized forces and if you use shared initiative. Still mostly a boss counter as they tend to have volume of attacks as the primary form of adding damage.

Option 4: probably the best approach. Still takes some damage which prevents combat from needing to be super swingy to be challenging or engaging. Could be a tad slower to resolve.

I would rank these options in terms of effectiveness as 3 > 2 > 4 > 1. I probably wouldn't use it as option 1, unless I predicted multiple attacks coming my character's way. The other 3 all have uses, thought option 4 is probably worse than Absorb Elements, because elemental hits tend to be larger than physical damage. I don't think 2 is all that different from current use, I would wager the mode for negated attacks by Shield is 1, by a large margin. 3 just falls between current use and option 2. Frankly I like the idea of adding a spell that just negates a hit as a different option. It would be interesting to see which is used more regularly.

[Tanarii]

That depends on game style. It's a far less useful spell in the game I play where the dice are hidden and the DM just narrates the attack hitting.
Sure. I won't play with GMs that feel they need to hide the results of their rolls and IMO the game is built under the general assumption there's no need (and rightly so!), so I don't consider having to guess part of the use case for any PHB feature based on DM rolls. But if you're willing to do so the spell becomes less useful.

[Unoriginal]

It's not a hypothetical. It's what Shield already does.

I guarantee you you can still get hit by an attack in reaction of which you cast Shield.


Sure. I won't play with GMs that feel they need to hide the results of their rolls and IMO the game is built under the general assumption there's no need (and rightly so!), so I don't consider having to guess part of the use case for any PHB feature based on DM rolls. But if you're willing to do so the spell becomes less useful.

Does your DMs also show you the monster statblocks they're using?

'cause you won't know if +5 is enough unless they show you the to-hit mod for that specific attack.

[Trask]

There are a few standout, teeth grinding spells. But I don't think its truly the problem. IMO the thing that's unacceptable is multiclass dips for heavy/medium armor and Resilient (Con) making casters (especially wizards) way too defensive, which defeats the whole POINT of a martial/caster divide. Magic-users should NEVER be allowed to have such high defenses and concentration checks should (almost) NEVER cross into auto-success territory. Its plain to see how many builds emphasize the importance of acquiring "unfailable conc. checks". Its a practice that does way more serious damage to game balance than the forcecage gas chamber (IMO).

[sithlordnergal]

Does your DMs also show you the monster statblocks they're using?

'cause you won't know if +5 is enough unless they show you the to-hit mod for that specific attack.

Whenever someone says this, I just have to ask, does basic math and problem solving not exist at your tables? Cause if a monster monster rolls a 10, and hits a guy with a 15 AC, then the DM rolls a 12, but misses the guy with an 18 AC, you can use that info to realize the hit bonus is +5. Cause the hit bonus has to be high enough to go from 10 to 15, but not high enough to go from 12 to 18.

[KorvinStarmast]

But you don't cast it unless it's negating an attack.

I mean, I get that from the perspective of "can you choose to mitigate any incoming attack of choice" the answer is no, because the +5 bonus must be enough. But from the perspective of "will it always mitigate an attack when cast" the answer is yes, since it'll only be cast when it is enough.

But good point out, it means Unoriginal's point is valid, there's a difference there. Sorry, but the spell lasts the whole round. That means that you can negate an attack that isn't a 20, and two or three attacks also have to deal with shield. A nat 20 will get through, some others will not, and some others will. Multiattack has a funny way of rolling high numbers now and again. I have seen this in play.

[Goobahfish]

Why make it bad for those with higher AC? Its effects are temporary, and once your AC is high enough Shield's effectiveness decreases. The best average case scenario is Shield blocks 1 attack, and on average will be responsible for blocking 25% of additional attacks until the characters turn. So it only really shines if a bunch of opponents are wailing on the user, otherwise it will usually be a 1st level slot to stop 1 attack. There seems to be this assumption that it's always active and available, and the user will always want to use it. The only time that is likely to be the case is late T2+ during 5MWDs. Or is stopping 1 attack thought to be too much for a 1st level spell?


Reaction based Barkskin, would get used less often than Barkskin. And well I suspect there was a reason they were looking at re-doing it for One D&D and it's not because it was good.

I think you aren't considering this correctly. Barkskin is only really bad because the number involved is low (AC=16 isn't amazing) and it uses concentration.

The main reason Shield is good is because it is a reaction and it breaks bound accuracy. Particularly, it is a reaction which is triggered after the attack (or magic missile) hits. Thus, the chance of 'wasting' Shield is actually pretty low. If the opponent hasn't rolled a crit (which is pretty obvious when the DM starts threatening to roll multiple dice) then for a gish-ish shield user we're looking at an AC of 24 upwards (15 + 2dex +2 shield + 5 shield). Which means you have enough of an idea of what the 'to-hit' was even if your DM rolls secretly. If they roll openly this is even easier to guess.

So, because of this, it isn't really 25%. That would imply you are always using shield which isn't what happens in practice. Now, I think it shouldn't be difficult to argue that action economy is hugely important in this game. Negating an attack (if that is all it was) is actually pretty crazy powerful. Worse still, it negates attack in a very bounded-accuracy breaking way. Much more devastating that disadvantage (which it quite happily stacks with).

Now there is a compelling mathematical argument. Strictly speaking, shield is better than disadvantage across the board until the initial chance to hit is <= 15%. However, at this point, you know whether the attack was a nat-20 because crits are usually announced and hence with this extra bit of meta-knowledge, it is pretty much always better than disadvantage. Which is even better because of when it can be used (i.e., reaction).

So let's please agree that it is pretty solid in negating a hit. Well, how powerful is negating a hit? Is it better than cure-wounds? That is a pretty reasonable yard-stick for what a level 1 spell should be capable of. Well, there are vast number of creatures which inflict ~2D6+3 wounds per hit. Even if that isn't the case, (i.e., multi-attack monsters) it basically makes you immune to attacks (or quite close to it AC = 24) until the end of the turn. So yeah, better than cure wounds by quite a margin. Especially if the monster grapples, shoves, poisons, paralyses etc too.

Now, as per my spitballing, if it was 17+Spell level for 1 turn, squishards would still probably get some utility out of it. AC = 15 => 18 is nothing to sneeze at even if it is only for a turn.

[Boci]

Whenever someone says this, I just have to ask, does basic math and problem solving not exist at your tables? Cause if a monster monster rolls a 10, and hits a guy with a 15 AC, then the DM rolls a 12, but misses the guy with an 18 AC, you can use that info to realize the hit bonus is +5. Cause the hit bonus has to be high enough to go from 10 to 15, but not high enough to go from 12 to 18.

You're assuming the players know what the DM rolled, which won't always be the case. I don't hide the rolls from my players, but if they're across the table from me its unlikely they can tell what number I just rolled on the d20 without getting up and checking.

[Unoriginal]

Whenever someone says this, I just have to ask, does basic math and problem solving not exist at your tables? Cause if a monster monster rolls a 10, and hits a guy with a 15 AC, then the DM rolls a 12, but misses the guy with an 18 AC, you can use that info to realize the hit bonus is +5. Cause the hit bonus has to be high enough to go from 10 to 15, but not high enough to go from 12 to 18.

That certainly is possible, but it takes several rolls that are close enough of the AC to figure it out.

If the monster does a Multiattack and rolls a 2, a 15 and a 18, against a PC with AC 16, and hits only with the last two, it means their to-hit is between +1 and +13.

So no, it doesn't take just basic math and problem solving, it takes basic math and problem solving and several rolls and some luck to get noteworthy results.

Is the Wizard refusing to cast Shield unless there has been enough rolls to determine the to-hit mod?

And that's not going into how a statblock can have several different to-hit mods even in the same multiattack.

[GeneralVryth]

I think you aren't considering this correctly. Barkskin is only really bad because the number involved is low (AC=16 isn't amazing) and it uses concentration.

The main reason Shield is good is because it is a reaction and it breaks bound accuracy. Particularly, it is a reaction which is triggered after the attack (or magic missile) hits. Thus, the chance of 'wasting' Shield is actually pretty low. If the opponent hasn't rolled a crit (which is pretty obvious when the DM starts threatening to roll multiple dice) then for a gish-ish shield user we're looking at an AC of 24 upwards (15 + 2dex +2 shield + 5 shield). Which means you have enough of an idea of what the 'to-hit' was even if your DM rolls secretly. If they roll openly this is even easier to guess.

So, because of this, it isn't really 25%. That would imply you are always using shield which isn't what happens in practice. Now, I think it shouldn't be difficult to argue that action economy is hugely important in this game. Negating an attack (if that is all it was) is actually pretty crazy powerful. Worse still, it negates attack in a very bounded-accuracy breaking way. Much more devastating that disadvantage (which it quite happily stacks with).

Now there is a compelling mathematical argument. Strictly speaking, shield is better than disadvantage across the board until the initial chance to hit is <= 15%. However, at this point, you know whether the attack was a nat-20 because crits are usually announced and hence with this extra bit of meta-knowledge, it is pretty much always better than disadvantage. Which is even better because of when it can be used (i.e., reaction).

So let's please agree that it is pretty solid in negating a hit. Well, how powerful is negating a hit? Is it better than cure-wounds? That is a pretty reasonable yard-stick for what a level 1 spell should be capable of. Well, there are vast number of creatures which inflict ~2D6+3 wounds per hit. Even if that isn't the case, (i.e., multi-attack monsters) it basically makes you immune to attacks (or quite close to it AC = 24) until the end of the turn. So yeah, better than cure wounds by quite a margin. Especially if the monster grapples, shoves, poisons, paralyses etc too.

Now, as per my spitballing, if it was 17+Spell level for 1 turn, squishards would still probably get some utility out of it. AC = 15 => 18 is nothing to sneeze at even if it is only for a turn.

I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here. I have always said Shield blocks at least 1 attack, and suggested that blocking 1 attack is the most common case. The peak capability of Shield is blocking 1 attack, and an average of 25% of additional attacks until the character's next turn. That can be shown mathematically.

As for your suggestion that would make it completely useless for any frontline gish, and quite bad for any caster. Comparing the effect to Cure Wounds is a pretty good illustration it's bad because Cure Wounds is bad.

[Boci]

Sure. I won't play with GMs that feel they need to hide the results of their rolls

It doesn't have to be "hiding". When I DM I don't roll behind a screen, but I roll in front of me, and if a monster is making 3 attacks I'm rolling them pretty quickly. I doubt the players can see the number on the d20, its not easy to read them from a distance.

[strangebloke]

Shield is just really strong. Like you can argue about efficiency and such until you're blue in the face but the reality is that its very easy to get 19-20 AC in 5e, and very easy to have shield on top of that. This has always been possible via one level multiclass dips, but over the lifespan its become easier. Even at a table with no variant rules you can show up with something like a githzerai forge cleric that has 21 AC at a baseline and shoots up to 26 for a burst. Bladesingers exist, Eldritch Knights exist. Artificers exist. With feats a VGM hobgob can grab moderately armored and have 19 AC as a wizard that bursts up to 24. And yeah, you can debate efficiency, but between your first level slots and arcane recovery that vgm hobgob is going to have 7 turns of shield. Assuming something like 4 encounters, 4 rounds each, that's 7/16 rounds that you're going to have 24 AC. That's really strong. And you might say that this is resource intensive, but... it really isn't? The arcane recovery would otherwise give you a single 3rd level slot, and the 1st level slots weren't going to be doing anything stronger than make you immune to attacks for a turn.

Shield is the best tanking feature in 5e, because it ensures that the enemy doesn't target the squishy wizard (their AC is too high) and so then they focus all their fire on the REALLY TANKY barbarian who they have advantage against and has 14 AC.

[GeneralVryth]

Shield is just really strong. Like you can argue about efficiency and such until you're blue in the face but the reality is that its very easy to get 19-20 AC in 5e, and very easy to have shield on top of that. This has always been possible via one level multiclass dips, but over the lifespan its become easier. Even at a table with no variant rules you can show up with something like a githzerai forge cleric that has 21 AC at a baseline and shoots up to 26 for a burst. Bladesingers exist, Eldritch Knights exist. Artificers exist. With feats a VGM hobgob can grab moderately armored and have 19 AC as a wizard that bursts up to 24. And yeah, you can debate efficiency, but between your first level slots and arcane recovery that vgm hobgob is going to have 7 turns of shield. Assuming something like 4 encounters, 4 rounds each, that's 7/16 rounds that you're going to have 24 AC. That's really strong. And you might say that this is resource intensive, but... it really isn't? The arcane recovery would otherwise give you a single 3rd level slot, and the 1st level slots weren't going to be doing anything stronger than make you immune to attacks for a turn.

Shield is the best tanking feature in 5e, because it ensures that the enemy doesn't target the squishy wizard (their AC is too high) and so then they focus all their fire on the REALLY TANKY barbarian who they have advantage against and has 14 AC.

Of course it's powerful. That's why I said earlier in the thread it should probably be 3 + spell level above 1st. But it's not this overpowered, game warping thing that it gets made out as by some. Also, 3 shields, versus 1 Hypnotic Pattern, or Fear, or Fireball? You're essentially talking about stopping 3 to 6 attacks, versus inflicting the Dead condition on a few weaker opponents, or denying a couple actions for 1 to 3 medium or weaker opponents. I think the idea that Shield is better in those comparisons is debatable. If the effect of Shield was really as powerful as it's made out to be, Defensive Duelist would get used a lot more. Arguably the main reason it isn't, is like armor proficiency, it's a little too easy to get Shield, relative to spending a feat.

The thing with that VGM Hobgob in your example, is Shield is only 5 of it's +14 AC and it's temporary. The real power is coming from the high passive AC. Lasting AC is extremely powerful in 5e, especially in the earlier levels when their are fewer save based attacks. And to make matters worse, AC scales fast during the lower levels before it plateaus, while attack mods scale more linearly. Fixing this requires redoing a number, of races, armors, class abilities, and potentially the armor system. And it's worth asking if it should be done in the first place because lower levels are when PCs have fewer hit points and so more heavily rely on AC versus just adsorbing a hit.

In typing this, I did come up with one thought that may be interesting. Increase the Str requirements for all Medium and Heavy Armors, as well as Shields, and make it so if you don't meet the requirements, it's the same as lacking proficiency.

Hide: Str 9
Chain Shirt: Str 10
Scale Mail: Str 11
Breastplate: Str 12
Half-Plate: Str 13

Ring Mail: Str 10
Chain Mail: Str 13
Splint: Str 15
Plate: Str 17

Buckler (+1 AC): Str 11
Shield: Str 13

Now any caster that wants to utilize the more efficient armors needs to pull ability score points from stats they would like to one they would prefer to dump. While most martials are unaffected (it only negatively impacts medium armor wearers, using dex as an attack stat, but needing slightly higher str in exchange for more efficient armor than light seems like a fair trade).

[Boci]

Shield is just really strong. Like you can argue about efficiency and such until you're blue in the face but the reality is that its very easy to get 19-20 AC in 5e, and very easy to have shield on top of that. This has always been possible via one level multiclass dips, but over the lifespan its become easier. Even at a table with no variant rules you can show up with something like a githzerai forge cleric that has 21 AC at a baseline and shoots up to 26 for a burst. Bladesingers exist, Eldritch Knights exist. Artificers exist. With feats a VGM hobgob can grab moderately armored and have 19 AC as a wizard that bursts up to 24. And yeah, you can debate efficiency, but between your first level slots and arcane recovery that vgm hobgob is going to have 7 turns of shield. Assuming something like 4 encounters, 4 rounds each, that's 7/16 rounds that you're going to have 24 AC. That's really strong. And you might say that this is resource intensive, but... it really isn't? The arcane recovery would otherwise give you a single 3rd level slot, and the 1st level slots weren't going to be doing anything stronger than make you immune to attacks for a turn.

Shield is the best tanking feature in 5e, because it ensures that the enemy doesn't target the squishy wizard (their AC is too high) and so then they focus all their fire on the REALLY TANKY barbarian who they have advantage against and has 14 AC.

My friend tried that, well artificer 1 / wizard x, for fullplate and con save proficiency, along with shield and and found it lackluster. They described an encounter in which they used shield against an attack, and then got double fireballed by flame skulls and didn't have a reaction for absorb elements.

Yeah yeah, insufficient information, I had some questions about that encounter myself, but worth noting outside the forum white room things don't always work as well they you think they should.

[Unoriginal]

My friend tried that, well artificer 1 / wizard x, for fullplate and con save proficiency, along with shield and and found it lackluster.

Off the books right now, but I'm pretty sure Artificier 1 doesn't get full plate proficiency.



They described an encounter in which they used shield against an attack, and then got double fireballed by flame skulls and didn't have a reaction for absorb elements.

Yeah, having to fight both attack-rolls-foes and saving-throws-foes in the same round is something that kind of builds are not good against.

[Boci]

Off the books right now, but I'm pretty sure Artificier 1 doesn't get full plate proficiency.

you're right, maybe just medium armour and shields then. I checked, they said they had AC 19, but didn't specify what armour they were using.

[Hael]

My friend tried that, well artificer 1 / wizard x, for fullplate and con save proficiency, along with shield and and found it lackluster. They described an encounter in which they used shield against an attack, and then got double fireballed by flame skulls and didn't have a reaction for absorb elements.

Yeah yeah, insufficient information, I had some questions about that encounter myself, but worth noting outside the forum white room things don't always work as well they you think they should.

The white room in this case is pretty clear that it will translate 1-1 into game situations. Its hard to come up with a more universally strong suggestion than recommending con saves and high AC for a caster.
In this particular case, your friend likely made the wrong tactical decision. Keep in mind most classes won’t get any damage mitigating options at all. So if that was sufficient to kill your friend, it was likely sufficient to kill anything else of the same level. Most classes would have tanked an extra attack as well as the two fireballs.

[Boci]

In this particular case, your friend likely made the wrong tactical decision.

That's an interesting take to conclude on very limited information.

[DruidOfNoSleep]

That's an interesting take to conclude on very limited information.

I mean, if you see 2 flame skulls, you should probably be worried about taking a bunch of fire damage.

[Boci]

I mean, if you see 2 flame skulls, you should probably be worried about taking a bunch of fire damage.

Interesting you assume he knew they were there when he chose to use shield, and completely discounted the idea that he got blindsided by them (which I would have to confirm with him, but I assumed is what happened, because I tend not to assume my friends are idiots).

[Corran]

Interesting you assume he knew they were there when he chose to use shield, and completely discounted the idea that he got blindsided by them (which I would have to confirm with him, but I assumed is what happened, because I tend not to assume my friends are idiots).
The less illogical conclusion would be that absorb elements is not a good spell because your reaction is likely to be already spent. Which of course isn't true. There is room for error when you've got competing options, and your friend was unlucky enough (either because of bad judgement or because of missing information) to experience it.

[Boci]

The less illogical conclusion would be that absorb elements is not a good spell because your reaction is likely to be already spent. Which of course isn't true. There is room for error when you've got competing options, and your friend was unlucky enough (either because of bad judgement or because of missing information) to experience it.

Right, and I was just noting is was funny how two poster had jumped to the "bad judgement" conclusion, despite not having nearly enough context to rule out missing information. And now you seem to be trying to imply I said I didn't. Which is also a little curious.

[Corran]

Right, and I was just noting is was funny how two poster had jumped to the "bad judgement" conclusion, despite not having nearly enough context to rule out missing information. And now you seem to be trying to imply I said I didn't. Which is also a little curious.
I am only interested in pointing out that your friend's conclusion seems unreasonable to me.

[Boci]

I am only interested in pointing out that your friend's conclusion seems unreasonable to me.

Huh? He played a character build, and found it lackluster. How is exactly if he being unreasonable here? How dare he find a build that didn't perform well lackluster?

[Corran]

Huh? He played a character build, and found it lackluster. How is exactly if he being unreasonable here? How dare he find a build that didn't perform well lackluster?
I'll pretend the question is "how is this an unreasonable conclusion to be drawn from the aforementioned example?".

It seems unreasonable to me, because the mistake here isn't [having resource-limited competing options with different enough situational peaks]. Instead the mistake is that the wrong reaction spell was used. Whether the wrong spell was used because the pc did something wrong or because the monsters did something right is one and the same. What matters is how often would one expect for such mistakes to be made. And unless I am given a specific reason to think otherwise (eg campaign premise is recent alien invasion so monsters are unknown and weird), I wouldn't say it should be often.

[Boci]

I'll pretend the question is "how is this an unreasonable conclusion to be drawn from the aforementioned example?"

Don't, because its not what I asked.

There were no conclusions drawn, that's something you invented. My friend tried a character concept that the forum considers tier 1, and found it lackluster. Not because of one encounter, they found the overall performance lackluster. They didn't draw a conclusion from this, beyond the fact that they don't like the character concept and likely won't be trying it again.

[Corran]

10 characters

[Hael]

They didn't draw a conclusion from this, beyond the fact that they don't like the character concept and likely won't be trying it again.

If they don’t like the character concept thats fine, its just this particular experience isn’t evidence for the build failing to mechanically deliver beyond the whiteroom. At the very least the shield spell prevented 1 or more attacks from landing, which is already a big deal. If that wasn’t good enough (either b/c a bad choice was made or b/c of lack of knowledge), then its likely any build will fail under those same circumstances. I mean, sometimes that happens right, where there is nothing you can do… Statistically you will always find those situations in a d20 game.

The claim is that high AC and an assortment of good reactions (shield/absorb/counterspell etc) tends to minimize the bad situations, not that they make any 1 character invincible.

[Corran]

If they don’t like the character concept thats fine, its just this particular experience isn’t evidence for the build failing to mechanically deliver beyond the whiteroom.
Thanks for finding the words I was missing.
I'll add that, playing experience does not automatically lead to correct conclusions.

[Boci]

If they don’t like the character concept thats fine, its just this particular experience isn’t evidence for the build failing to mechanically deliver beyond the whiteroom.

It totally is. Its not conclusive evidence by any means, or even particularly strong, but anecdotal evidence is still evidence, its in the name.


At the very least the shield spell prevented 1 or more attacks from landing

You don't actually know that. I don't either. Its possible the shield spell blocked at least one attack, probably even, but it is also possible the attack still hit through shield, which is something that can happen, as several people in this thread have pointed out.

[Corran]

It totally is. Its not conclusive evidence by any means, or even particularly strong, but anecdotal evidence is still evidence, its in the name.
Unfiltered anecdotes from an unknown source carry only the weight that you give them. And you determine that weight by thinking about what they tell you.

Also, what was evident from the example you presented, was that the wrong spell was used.

[Boci]

Unfiltered anecdotes from an unknown source carry only the weight that you give them. And you determine that weight by thinking (which is both free and legal) about what they tell you.

Yeah sure, none of that is untrue. Its just a little tough to imagine you would have cared this much about the quality of my anecdote if I had said "my friend tried that build and is having a blast, he tanks so well, the forums really knocked it out the park with this build".

[Tanarii]

Does your DMs also show you the monster statblocks they're using?

'cause you won't know if +5 is enough unless they show you the to-hit mod for that specific attack.
So you both roll in secret AND don't ask if the total was enough to hit the players AC. Got it.

[Boci]

So you both roll in secret AND don't ask if the total was enough to hit the players AC. Got it.

Not that difficult for a DM to memorise the ACs of part members, or have a cheat sheet of AC, passive perception and what not for each player.

And its not necessarily rolling in secret. Can you tell what someone, player or DM, rolled in front of them across the table? Because I can't.

[Corran]

Yeah sure, none of that is untrue. Its just a little tough to imagine you would have cared this much about the quality of my anecdote if I had said "my friend tried that build and is having a blast, he tanks so well, the forums really knocked it out the park with this build".
Look Boci, I dont care about the build or of protecting the accepted(?) optimization standards of this forum. I had to go back and check it was an artificer 1/ wizard? X. I just dont get how that example shows anything more than that there is room for error when you have competing resources, which in he case of shield and absorb elements I dont find terrible. Because shield and absorb elements are different enough to make me think that what occurred in your example is not going to be the norm usually, so this is not really any part of the opportunity cost of armoring up your caster in the aim to combine higher base AC with the shield spell. I got a little more passionate than I should at the end, but my initial comments were cold and I was only after the discussion and not any drama. I'll edit my previous post to remove passive aggression and we can catch up in another thread.

[strangebloke]

Of course it's powerful. That's why I said earlier in the thread it should probably be 3 + spell level above 1st. But it's not this overpowered, game warping thing that it gets made out as by some. Also, 3 shields, versus 1 Hypnotic Pattern, or Fear, or Fireball? You're essentially talking about stopping 3 to 6 attacks, versus inflicting the Dead condition on a few weaker opponents, or denying a couple actions for 1 to 3 medium or weaker opponents. I think the idea that Shield is better in those comparisons is debatable. If the effect of Shield was really as powerful as it's made out to be, Defensive Duelist would get used a lot more. Arguably the main reason it isn't, is like armor proficiency, it's a little too easy to get Shield, relative to spending a feat.

The thing with that VGM Hobgob in your example, is Shield is only 5 of it's +14 AC and it's temporary. The real power is coming from the high passive AC. Lasting AC is extremely powerful in 5e, especially in the earlier levels when their are fewer save based attacks. And to make matters worse, AC scales fast during the lower levels before it plateaus, while attack mods scale more linearly. Fixing this requires redoing a number, of races, armors, class abilities, and potentially the armor system. And it's worth asking if it should be done in the first place because lower levels are when PCs have fewer hit points and so more heavily rely on AC versus just adsorbing a hit.

The thing with AC is that it gets exponentially more valuable the more bonuses you can stack, and shield is (to borrow a 3.5e term) a massive untyped bonus. It stacks with everything. You can have blur, 21 AC, and still have shield in the pocket.

So yes, in general a character with 15 AC and shield is much worse than a character with 20 AC. But you can have both and they're better together.

My friend tried that, well artificer 1 / wizard x, for fullplate and con save proficiency, along with shield and and found it lackluster. They described an encounter in which they used shield against an attack, and then got double fireballed by flame skulls and didn't have a reaction for absorb elements.

Yeah yeah, insufficient information, I had some questions about that encounter myself, but worth noting outside the forum white room things don't always work as well they you think they should.

Obviously there are circumstances in which a very excellent round peg won't fit into a square hole. I would know. I've killed a lot of very highly optimized characters. There are always ways of overcoming defenses. Fall damage, creatures with +9 attack and advantage, throwing enough saves at some that they fail eventually, chambers that flood with lava. You know. The works.

But no individual specific means of overcoming a defense means that its lacklustre in general. This example you have here is a great one, actually. Flameskulls are notorious for being really hard to kill (they have shield!) and great offense. In this case, lets assume we have a monk or something with evasion. Basically immune to fireball! Great! ....He eats 10d4+10 = 35 irreducible damage from two upcasted magic missiles, plus whatever damage from the first attack.

What makes AC stacking and shield good is that it does legit make you a lot stronger and doesn't consume that many build/daily resources. Most characters get a lot stronger from a 1 level wizard or cleric dip for a reason.

[GeneralVryth]

The thing with AC is that it gets exponentially more valuable the more bonuses you can stack, and shield is (to borrow a 3.5e term) a massive untyped bonus. It stacks with everything. You can have blur, 21 AC, and still have shield in the pocket.

So yes, in general a character with 15 AC and shield is much worse than a character with 20 AC. But you can have both and they're better together.


It's only exponential if you are looking at marginal gain/opportunity cost, or the number of attacks needed to bring down a character. In terms of absolute incoming damage +1 AC is worth 5% of incoming damage until you can only get hit by a nat 20, then it's worthless.

Anyways, my fundamental point is it isn't that Shield is the problem, but the ease of which so many characters can get a high passive AC. Shield is one of only a handful of useful spells for level 1 slots once a caster gets access 3rd level spells and beyond. I would rather not see those options diminished further. That's part of why I like the idea of adding a "Negate 1 hit" spell, and weakening Shield a little, on net it should increase competition for 1st level slot usage, once a caster is higher level.

[AHF]

It's only exponential if you are looking at marginal gain/opportunity cost, or the number of attacks needed to bring down a character. In terms of absolute incoming damage +1 AC is worth 5% of incoming damage until you can only get hit by a nat 20, then it's worthless.

Anyways, my fundamental point is it isn't that Shield is the problem, but the ease of which so many characters can get a high passive AC. Shield is one of only a handful of useful spells for level 1 slots once a caster gets access 3rd level spells and beyond. I would rather not see those options diminished further. That's part of why I like the idea of adding a "Negate 1 hit" spell, and weakening Shield a little, on net it should increase competition for 1st level slot usage, once a caster is higher level.

I still like the solution of reverting to prior edition restrictions on wearing armor while spellcasting. If shield is only available to classes that have no armor proficiency (Wizard and Sorcerer) and these arcane casters can’t cast their class spells while wearing armor, it solves both this problem and goes a long way towards reducing the caster/martial divide in a good way. It may be that some further redesign would be beneficial but it greatly reduces the need for it.

[Unoriginal]

So you both roll in secret AND don't ask if the total was enough to hit the players AC. Got it.

I ask my players what their current ACs are when needed.

Genuinely curious: if your DMs tell you the to-hit mods of the NPCs, do they also tell you the NPCs' ACs?

Do they tell you their save modifiers? HPs total and current HPs?

Do they inform you when the NPC has a special feature granting them advantage or disadvantage in X circumstances, or resistance/vulnerability to Y?

People play the game how they prefer it, of course, but each automatically-known information makes the fight easier for PCs as a whole and for casters in particular.

Take the "players know the foes' current HPs", for example. Instead of having to guess based on descriptions, the player knows precisely how much damage is needed, which means they can calculate which spell and spell slot is the best for the job. There is no "waste your highest remaining spell slot when a 1rst level Magic Missile would have been enough", no enemies able to fake they're more wounded than they are, no "I don't think I can take down this monster this turn, I need to give my potion the Paladin if we want to survive" wrong conclusions that can make all the difference in combat.

Again, not saying your favored playstyle is badwrongfun,but telling the players enemies' to-hit mods and showing them all dice results has significant consequences that must be acknowledged

[Boci]

Again, not saying your favored playstyle is badwrongfun,but telling the players enemies' to-hit mods and showing them all dice results has significant consequences that must be acknowledged

I'd go one step further and say that if what Tanarii described was the intended way shield would work, the designers could have changed the trigger of Shield to "When an attack beats your AC b 4 or less".

[GeneralVryth]

I still like the solution of reverting to prior edition restrictions on wearing armor while spellcasting. If shield is only available to classes that have no armor proficiency (Wizard and Sorcerer) and these arcane casters can’t cast their class spells while wearing armor, it solves both this problem and goes a long way towards reducing the caster/martial divide in a good way. It may be that some further redesign would be beneficial but it greatly reduces the need for it.

There are too many archtypes that are arcane spells + armor for a general ban to work. And trying to limit spells by origin is going to be an exercise annoyance. I also don't think armor + a slightly weaker Shield is that OP. If a character focuses most of their resources on being unhittable, I am fine with them being nearly unhittable. The problem arises if it's too easy and most/all of the party is that way.

[Goobahfish]

It's only exponential if you are looking at marginal gain/opportunity cost, or the number of attacks needed to bring down a character. In terms of absolute incoming damage +1 AC is worth 5% of incoming damage until you can only get hit by a nat 20, then it's worthless.

Anyways, my fundamental point is it isn't that Shield is the problem, but the ease of which so many characters can get a high passive AC. Shield is one of only a handful of useful spells for level 1 slots once a caster gets access 3rd level spells and beyond. I would rather not see those options diminished further. That's part of why I like the idea of adding a "Negate 1 hit" spell, and weakening Shield a little, on net it should increase competition for 1st level slot usage, once a caster is higher level.

I mean... it is only exponential (actually technically a rational function) if you look at it in the context that makes most sense to view it in.

A character with say... 10 hit points and a 11+ to hit requires 20-ish expected damage to kill (10 / 0.5). That same character with a 16+ to hit requires 40-ish expected damage and likewise up to 200-ish expected damage for a 20+ to hit. So yeah. That is the correct frame of reference to judge AC. Treating +1 AC as 5% loses the meaning of what that 5% entails. How much damage you can theoretically absorb is the relevant metric which is inversely proportional to AC (well actually to -AC).

On your second point, I fundamentally disagree. Characters having high passive AC is a natural part of the game. The fact it is so easy might be debatable (it is probably easier than it should be and martials having very little substantive difference in achieving a high AC is absurd). However, Shield is the problem. The game has bound-accuracy as an underpinning principle. Shield breaks bound-accuracy. I mean, it isn't much simpler than this. Shield in any form similar to the way it is now, just shouldn't exist based on the design goals of the edition. Same for pass without trace and a few others. It's not that they are really super-powerful (although they are actually pretty darn good), it is that they go against the logic of the game. I.e., game-breaking. D&D is robust enough to absorb some of this game-breaking stuff but it can only stretch so far. Shield is one of those 'breaks' that does often stretch too far.

[GeneralVryth]

I mean... it is only exponential (actually technically a rational function) if you look at it in the context that makes most sense to view it in.

A character with say... 10 hit points and a 11+ to hit requires 20-ish expected damage to kill (10 / 0.5). That same character with a 16+ to hit requires 40-ish expected damage and likewise up to 200-ish expected damage for a 20+ to hit. So yeah. That is the correct frame of reference to judge AC. Treating +1 AC as 5% loses the meaning of what that 5% entails. How much damage you can theoretically absorb is the relevant metric which is inversely proportional to AC (well actually to -AC).

On your second point, I fundamentally disagree. Characters having high passive AC is a natural part of the game. The fact it is so easy might be debatable (it is probably easier than it should be and martials having very little substantive difference in achieving a high AC is absurd). However, Shield is the problem. The game has bound-accuracy as an underpinning principle. Shield breaks bound-accuracy. I mean, it isn't much simpler than this. Shield in any form similar to the way it is now, just shouldn't exist based on the design goals of the edition. Same for pass without trace and a few others. It's not that they are really super-powerful (although they are actually pretty darn good), it is that they go against the logic of the game. I.e., game-breaking. D&D is robust enough to absorb some of this game-breaking stuff but it can only stretch so far. Shield is one of those 'breaks' that does often stretch too far.

That kind of exponential analysis makes sense when you are talking about a static value, and trying to compare a marginal static increase in the value with some other bonus. The problem is Shield is a temporary bonus, it's not always on, in fact it has one of the shortest durations a buff can have. So you can't just treat it as a reduction to hit in that static EHP equation. Which is a point I made earlier in the thread.

That temporary nature is why it doesn't break bounded accuracy in the same way as PWT. And also why it's fine despite the bounded accuracy design goal. Seriously, try applying some real numbers to the question, I did it earlier in this and showed Shield actually scales inversely with AC at high AC values. To me it seems like everyone who views it as completely broken treat it as permanent +5 AC, which it's not.

[Corran]

That temporary nature is why it doesn't break bounded accuracy in the same way as PWT.
Apples and oranges.


And also why it's fine despite the bounded accuracy design goal.
Debatable and dependent on how effective you imagined that monsters of generally lower CR's would remain. Also, if something exceeds some limit, reducing the times that it exceeds this limit is by no means the same as not exceeding it.

But what about it, not as a bounded accuracy design goal, but as a design goal in general?



Seriously, try applying some real numbers to the question, I did it earlier in this and showed Shield actually scales inversely with AC at high AC values. To me it seems like everyone who views it as completely broken treat it as permanent +5 AC, which it's not.
I missed that post (big thread...), but I am guessing you refer to diminishing returns. Everything comes with diminishing returns. Reducing diminishing returns is hardly a good measure of value outside of certain extreme scenarios (eg heavy attrition).

In the context of something like melee fighting, the value of stacking AC (to which shield is integral) can be way more high than the value of stacking offense. An EK thrown against Many weak enemies can be a great counter if you use it to stack defense (eg blur and shield). But a battlemaster (who for example relies on fullplate and on a few maneuvers for defense and on GWM and on maneuvers for attack) cannot clear the same challenge as easily, because they dont have a great enough cleave power to reduce enemy numbers fast enough and by an amount that would result to a similar damage reduction that stacking AC achieves.

Shield is not broken because it helps you win X% of encounters (where X could perhaps be argued to be relatively high). It is broken because it lets you spike your AC significantly, which can be a disproportionally good answer to enemies compared to what other options you'd expect a mostly martial character to have (control, debuffs, damage). IMO it's also thematically garbage, but that's just because I prefer visualizing this spell as literally the last line of defense of a squishy caster than as a calculated combat technique of some heroic individual who will punch through an army of bad guys (never liked that kind of action movie...)

[tokek]

I sometimes think we do better to regard Shield spell as a form of healing. It’s job is to leave you with more HP than you otherwise would have.

At low levels it compares quite reasonably with healing spells. But it scales with how damaging attacks are so when it stops being goblins and starts being owlbears hitting you it out-competes healing by too much.

My fix would be to get rid of the AC stuff and make it a damage reduction spell that you can upcast and which scales like healing spells.

[Tanarii]

I ask my players what their current ACs are when needed.

Genuinely curious: if your DMs tell you the to-hit mods of the NPCs, do they also tell you the NPCs' ACs?

Do they tell you their save modifiers? HPs total and current HPs?

Do they inform you when the NPC has a special feature granting them advantage or disadvantage in X circumstances, or resistance/vulnerability to Y?Save roll totals, yes. Because DMs need to ask if the total save value is successful, just like players do. They aren't expect to have PCs character sheet details memorized nor kept them in front of them. It's a required part of the game loop, just as with "does 16 hit?"

There's only one reason for a DM to run the game in a way that doesn't allow the player to know they'll be stopping a hit when Shield is cast, and I will not play with those kinds of DMs.

[Unoriginal]

Save roll totals, yes. Because DMs need to ask if the total save value is successful, just like players do. They aren't expect to have PCs character sheet details memorized nor kept them in front of them. It's a required part of the game loop, just as with "does 16 hit?"

That is not a required part. Asking "what is your AC right now?" and "what is your spell DC right now?" is also an option.



There's only one reason for a DM to run the game in a way that doesn't allow the player to know they'll be stopping a hit when Shield is cast

And what is this only one reason?

[Xervous]

My take on shield is that the majority of monsters are poorly designed by only being able to target AC. If the devs wanted to threaten casters with a creature they could have given it something that forces a STR save. Such an option wouldn’t need to be all that powerful, it would mainly serve as an effectiveness floor against characters with boosted AC.

[stoutstien]

My take on shield is that the majority of monsters are poorly designed by only being able to target AC. If the devs wanted to threaten casters with a creature they could have given it something that forces a STR save. Such an option wouldn’t need to be all that powerful, it would mainly serve as an effectiveness floor against characters with boosted AC.

I personally prefer having at least 2 forms of defense that can be toggled by both the attacker and defender but then it becomes a question on what you need to remove to make room for it because DnDesque systems already toe the line as far as combat speed goes.

[GeneralVryth]

My take on shield is that the majority of monsters are poorly designed by only being able to target AC. If the devs wanted to threaten casters with a creature they could have given it something that forces a STR save. Such an option wouldn’t need to be all that powerful, it would mainly serve as an effectiveness floor against characters with boosted AC.

What stops you from doing that now? Knock someone down for advantage, or try and break concentration?

[Xervous]

What stops you from doing that now? Knock someone down for advantage, or try and break concentration?

Those options are generally a basement tier option when compared to the desired floor. I’m talking about dealing damage, applying nastier conditions, or simply being a ranged ability. Advantage against the AC boosted character doesn’t mean all that much. The intent is for the STR effect to be a monster win condition in its own right, but not the most effective option against characters whose defenses aren’t skewed to extremes.

Monster attacks +5/1d10+4, or it throws 1d10 damage at range with save DC 14 STR. For a character with +0 STR save, the monster is better off attacking if the target’s AC is 19 or lower. STR characters pretty much always get their AC targeted when the monster has the option, and they are generally resilient to the monster at range. A character going all in on AC gets hit by the monster’s damage floor, as the wizard didn’t shore up its STR save.

[Boci]

There's only one reason for a DM to run the game in a way that doesn't allow the player to know they'll be stopping a hit when Shield is cast, and I will not play with those kinds of DMs.

That's not true, its mostly about pacing and flow. Combat is often slow enough, making dicerolls faster can help make combat feel smoother, even if the actual time saved minimal. Plus there benefits too. If a monster attacks 3 times, I roll them together and then announce the results, so a player with shield can decide if they want to use the spell knowing they were only hit once, rather than healing the first attack hits, and needing to decide then, not knowing if the shield will apply only here, or to the remaining two attacks as well.

[stoutstien]

What stops you from doing that now? Knock someone down for advantage, or try and break concentration?

You can but it still means that the caster in question is "winning". NPCs tend to have a lot of weight into a limited action pool, which makes sense from a design angle, but this means trading those actions for something like a shove or grapple has a high cost. The stat blocks that do inherently have these built in are usually placed as riders on the attack so having high avoidance gets better and better.

This tactic works well for team party because they tend to have both an action economy advantage and can leverage the temporary condition more readily. A fighter giving up 1-2 attacks to prone and smash is just a smaller cost to a npc trading multi attack for it.

[KorvinStarmast]

I like Option 1 OK, Phoenix.

Roll when the attack is made (kind of like Using counterspell) and gain the benefit, if any.

[GeneralVryth]

You can but it still means that the caster in question is "winning". NPCs tend to have a lot of weight into a limited action pool, which makes sense from a design angle, but this means trading those actions for something like a shove or grapple has a high cost. The stat blocks that do inherently have these built in are usually placed as riders on the attack so having high avoidance gets better and better.

This tactic works well for team party because they tend to have both an action economy advantage and can leverage the temporary condition more readily. A fighter giving up 1-2 attacks to prone and smash is just a smaller cost to a npc trading multi attack for it.

Why does a NPC have to trade mutli-attack for it instead of just 1 attack of the mutli-attack? Also, this seems to assume the PCs outnumber the opponent. Obviously if the NPC is outnumbered, it should be quite a bit stronger, and presumeably have multiple ways of approach things. Or just smash a weaker target. If that doesn't make sense in context it sounds like the PCs are using smart tactics for a foe in which case they should win with little resource use. Also, a PC burning a spell slot on shield is burning resources.

[stoutstien]

Why does a NPC have to trade mutli-attack for it instead of just 1 attack of the mutli-attack? Also, this seems to assume the PCs outnumber the opponent. Obviously if the NPC is outnumbered, it should be quite a bit stronger, and presumeably have multiple ways of approach things. Or just smash a weaker target. If that doesn't make sense in context it sounds like the PCs are using smart tactics for a foe in which case they should win with little resource use. Also, a PC burning a spell slot on shield is burning resources.

PCS are just built differently. Their actions are inherently more flexible and have more nesting<actions> per turn even if team monster out number the party in a numerical sense. The game just not fun if the players are sitting around waiting for NPCs to be taking as long as their turns. It's a spotlight issue.

Then, even if you allow breaking down multi attack team monster just doesn't have the same impact for the same tactic. The entire belief that they're supposed to be somewhat equal is systematically impossible because if that case every encounter would be a coin flip and no party would survive the first session. they're built and play very differently because they are achieving different goals so if you are trying to reduce the effectiveness of low-hanging fruit tactics you're going to have to approach it within that space. If not you may accidentally end up amplifying the issue rather than solving it.

[Saelethil]

Of course it's powerful. That's why I said earlier in the thread it should probably be 3 + spell level above 1st. But it's not this overpowered, game warping thing that it gets made out as by some. Also, 3 shields, versus 1 Hypnotic Pattern, or Fear, or Fireball? You're essentially talking about stopping 3 to 6 attacks, versus inflicting the Dead condition on a few weaker opponents, or denying a couple actions for 1 to 3 medium or weaker opponents. I think the idea that Shield is better in those comparisons is debatable. If the effect of Shield was really as powerful as it's made out to be, Defensive Duelist would get used a lot more. Arguably the main reason it isn't, is like armor proficiency, it's a little too easy to get Shield, relative to spending a feat.

The thing with that VGM Hobgob in your example, is Shield is only 5 of it's +14 AC and it's temporary. The real power is coming from the high passive AC. Lasting AC is extremely powerful in 5e, especially in the earlier levels when their are fewer save based attacks. And to make matters worse, AC scales fast during the lower levels before it plateaus, while attack mods scale more linearly. Fixing this requires redoing a number, of races, armors, class abilities, and potentially the armor system. And it's worth asking if it should be done in the first place because lower levels are when PCs have fewer hit points and so more heavily rely on AC versus just adsorbing a hit.

In typing this, I did come up with one thought that may be interesting. Increase the Str requirements for all Medium and Heavy Armors, as well as Shields, and make it so if you don't meet the requirements, it's the same as lacking proficiency.

Hide: Str 9
Chain Shirt: Str 10
Scale Mail: Str 11
Breastplate: Str 12
Half-Plate: Str 13

Ring Mail: Str 10
Chain Mail: Str 13
Splint: Str 15
Plate: Str 17

Buckler (+1 AC): Str 11
Shield: Str 13

Now any caster that wants to utilize the more efficient armors needs to pull ability score points from stats they would like to one they would prefer to dump. While most martials are unaffected (it only negatively impacts medium armor wearers, using dex as an attack stat, but needing slightly higher str in exchange for more efficient armor than light seems like a fair trade).

I think my preference would be a combination of the above armor changes and Shield setting your AC to a static number until the start of your next turn (17 or 18 + slot level seems reasonable). Then investing in a better mundane AC doesn’t bring your AC up to crazy levels with Shield, it just saves you spell slots.

[GeneralVryth]

PCS are just built differently. Their actions are inherently more flexible and have more nesting<actions> per turn even if team monster out number the party in a numerical sense. The game just not fun if the players are sitting around waiting for NPCs to be taking as long as their turns. It's a spotlight issue.

Then, even if you allow breaking down multi attack team monster just doesn't have the same impact for the same tactic. The entire belief that they're supposed to be somewhat equal is systematically impossible because if that case every encounter would be a coin flip and no party would survive the first session. they're built and play very differently because they are achieving different goals so if you are trying to reduce the effectiveness of low-hanging fruit tactics you're going to have to approach it within that space. If not you may accidentally end up amplifying the issue rather than solving it.

I never said the monsters have to be equal, I was just implying the DM doesn't have to rigidly follow the statblock. Breaking up a multi-attack to follow the theme/flexibility of an extra attack seems fine to me. Also, team monster doesn't have to be as effective as the PCs they just need to be enough of a threat to cost some resources or force a change of tactics.


I think my preference would be a combination of the above armor changes and Shield setting your AC to a static number until the start of your next turn (17 or 18 + slot level seems reasonable). Then investing in a better mundane AC doesn’t bring your AC up to crazy levels with Shield, it just saves you spell slots.

Spell slots to do what with though? As it is once you leave tier 1 there isn't a lot of use for 1st level spell slots, Shield and Absorb Elements are 2 of relatively few options that are useful at higher levels, that is part of the reason they are so popular. Silvery Barbs is in the same boat (though more effective because it can help force failed saves which is a lot more powerful than missed attacks or damage reduction). You change turns Shield into either a very niche or unusable spell. Add again, being temporarily extremely difficult to hit, or negating a hit isn't that powerful. At best it's a single wasted action (or maybe a couple in the best Shield cases). It's not hard control, or really control of any kind.

[Goobahfish]

In typing this, I did come up with one thought that may be interesting. Increase the Str requirements for all Medium and Heavy Armors, as well as Shields, and make it so if you don't meet the requirements, it's the same as lacking proficiency.

Hide: Str 9
Chain Shirt: Str 10
Scale Mail: Str 11
Breastplate: Str 12
Half-Plate: Str 13

Ring Mail: Str 10
Chain Mail: Str 13
Splint: Str 15
Plate: Str 17

Buckler (+1 AC): Str 11
Shield: Str 13

Now any caster that wants to utilize the more efficient armors needs to pull ability score points from stats they would like to one they would prefer to dump. While most martials are unaffected (it only negatively impacts medium armor wearers, using dex as an attack stat, but needing slightly higher str in exchange for more efficient armor than light seems like a fair trade).

Only just noticed this. This I like. It is actually what I did in my RPG. There is a stat 'Stamina' which is HP you get back at the end of combat (as opposed to Vitality which you don't). So, high Strength gives you more Stamina as does investing in Martial skills (it's not a class-based game).

Armour proficiency depends on your stamina. The logic being that it is actually stamina more than Strength (though it helps) which matters for armour based on accounts of my armour-donning friends.

The suggestion you list above would be grand as it could be used to just get rid of Armour proficiency altogether. Want a Wizard in Armour... well, get a high strength and knock yourself out.

[GeneralVryth]

Only just noticed this. This I like. It is actually what I did in my RPG. There is a stat 'Stamina' which is HP you get back at the end of combat (as opposed to Vitality which you don't). So, high Strength gives you more Stamina as does investing in Martial skills (it's not a class-based game).

Armour proficiency depends on your stamina. The logic being that it is actually stamina more than Strength (though it helps) which matters for armour based on accounts of my armour-donning friends.

The suggestion you list above would be grand as it could be used to just get rid of Armour proficiency altogether. Want a Wizard in Armour... well, get a high strength and knock yourself out.

Yep, that is the right solution in my mind. Proficiency just doesn't have much of a cost in 5e, so make the cost something else that does matter (especially for casters who are getting the free usage). Another thing I would do, is give martials a higher level standard feature like extra attack that gives them a flat +1 AC, maybe +2 total by the end of T3 (alongside my early comment about exapnded fighting styles). And then maybe just increase standard monster attacks by 1. And then mix in some moe non-combat features at the higher levels.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If shield is a necessary defensive measure by the game's standards...then why is it cabined in like 2 class lists?

IMO, I'd rather

1. dump shield as a spell. Roll the "neutralizes magic missile" (which I've seen come into play...once? Maybe?) part into something else.
2. Give everyone who is wearing armor (including mage armor) one of the bullet points from Defensive Duelist[1] with some kind of cost (uses/SR, etc).
3. Give martials and those who are supposed to wear armor either more uses, better uses, etc.[2]

No, the best way to spike your AC should not be a spell.

[1] or even better, say "+prof to AC against one attack".
[2] such as getting to riposte attack if the triggering attack misses as part of the reaction.

[GeneralVryth]

If shield is a necessary defensive measure by the game's standards...then why is it cabined in like 2 class lists?

IMO, I'd rather

1. dump shield as a spell. Roll the "neutralizes magic missile" (which I've seen come into play...once? Maybe?) part into something else.
2. Give everyone who is wearing armor (including mage armor) one of the bullet points from Defensive Duelist[1] with some kind of cost (uses/SR, etc).
3. Give martials and those who are supposed to wear armor either more uses, better uses, etc.[2]

No, the best way to spike your AC should not be a spell.

[1] or even better, say "+prof to AC against one attack".
[2] such as getting to riposte attack if the triggering attack misses as part of the reaction.

I don't think it's necessary, I just don't think it's overpowered. In fact bullet points 2 and 3 above sound great.

One thing I have returned to a few times is Shield fills a niche of what to do with 1st level spell slots, when most of the damage and control effects have been outclassed (usually at level 5). Bards, Clerics and Druids have Healing Word which is always usefully for efficiently getting someone back in to the fight/saving someone from death, Warlocks don't have 1st level slots at that point, Paladins get smite, Ranger's have Hunter's Mark (admittedly the worst example). Sorcerers and Wizards have what? Absorb Elements, which isn't even core? Shield is what slots in here, and notably those are the only 2 classes in this list that don't start with armor proficiencies. If you are going to drop Shield for a system like what is described above (which sounds good in my opinion, it's a defensive resource that can be attrited and a competing use of a reactions), you need to answer the question of what is the default/dump use for Sorcerers and Wizards of their 1st level slots, once they reach T2?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Something to note, its in a bit more than 2 class lists. Yes, it technically falls into Wizard or Sorcerer, however Warlocks, Fighters, Artificers, and Rogues can easily get it, depending on what subclass they choose. Additionally, you should look at the rest of the spell lists, especially the base PHB spell list before we had a huge bloat of spells.

If you do, you'll notice that the classes that can naturally Shield don't have many good ways to tank hits with their HP. Where as classes that can tank via their HP don't have Shield:

- Clerics and Paladins have their own version with Shield of Faith, providing a smaller bonus that lasts longer. This is supplemented with the ability to easily restore theor own HP, letting them be a sprt of hybrid that tanks with HP and AC.

- Druids, Rangers, and Warlocks are generally expected to tank via their HP, not their AC. They have multiple spells that either grant Resistance or Temp HP, and healing spells/abilities.

- Artificers are a weird mix of hard counters and temp HP, with Sanctuary, Absorb Elements, their own magic items, and Sjield from a subclass. They also came in after the Spell bloat


The only two classes that sort of lack a hard defense baked into their spell lists are Bards, and the only class that gets Shield with a solid way to reduce damage easily is the Rogue. Though the Bard makes up for that with the ability to take any spell they like, and the Rogue makes up for it by being restricted to Light Armor.



Edit: This sort of falls into my thoughts on how WotC figured each class would tank damage. I feel like they thought classes would tank one of three ways: Evasion, ac, or hp, and they set up each method accordingly via spells and class abilities. To varying degrees of success

Classes and subclasses that tank via AC were given access to the Shield spell and Mage Armor. Basically they could emulate having full plate with the right investment, and could spike their AC

Classes that tank via HP were given easy access to temp hp and healing. Things like Cure Wounds, at-will False Life, Wild Shape, ect.

And classes that are meant to just avoid damage entirely were given basic healing spells and not much else

It answers why other casters don't have Shield. Its because those other casters are expected to tank either with their HP or by simple evasion.

Their mistake came with multiclassing and damage scaling. Shield on its own is perfectly fine, multiclassing causes it to become screwy. And damage outpaces healing and temp hp so quickly that its a lost cause. You basically need to make a gimmick build, such as a Barbarian/Warlock, or be completely broken, like a Moon Druid, to make hp tanking as effective as AC tanking.

I agree that that's sorta what they designed...and then they blew it out of the water with multiclassing. But I'd say that wizards/sorcerers being able to tank at all is a problem. They're supposed to be squishy and depend on not being in the line of fire to stay alive. Not "yeah, I can ignore everything because I have this OP spell."

And if (as someone else said) 1st level slots aren't even a real resource at higher levels (because you don't have other stuff to spend them on), then it's not a spike, it's pretty much a guarantee. Exacerbated by the 5MWD issue.

Personally, I think the class fiction for full casters being squishy and requiring someone beefy to get in the way (and having the ability to do so, which is a separate conversation) is much more appealing than "I have the best way of being tanky...it's a spell. Yay. The best everything is a spell, and it's on my list. Yay. Aren't I so cool."

[stoutstien]

If shield is a necessary defensive measure by the game's standards...then why is it cabined in like 2 class lists?

IMO, I'd rather

1. dump shield as a spell. Roll the "neutralizes magic missile" (which I've seen come into play...once? Maybe?) part into something else.
2. Give everyone who is wearing armor (including mage armor) one of the bullet points from Defensive Duelist[1] with some kind of cost (uses/SR, etc).
3. Give martials and those who are supposed to wear armor either more uses, better uses, etc.[2]

No, the best way to spike your AC should not be a spell.

[1] or even better, say "+prof to AC against one attack".
[2] such as getting to riposte attack if the triggering attack misses as part of the reaction.

Hmm you could expand on this and add more charges with shield(the armor/object) rather than it just adding AC as well.

[sithlordnergal]

I agree that that's sorta what they designed...and then they blew it out of the water with multiclassing. But I'd say that wizards/sorcerers being able to tank at all is a problem. They're supposed to be squishy and depend on not being in the line of fire to stay alive. Not "yeah, I can ignore everything because I have this OP spell."

And if (as someone else said) 1st level slots aren't even a real resource at higher levels (because you don't have other stuff to spend them on), then it's not a spike, it's pretty much a guarantee. Exacerbated by the 5MWD issue.

Personally, I think the class fiction for full casters being squishy and requiring someone beefy to get in the way (and having the ability to do so, which is a separate conversation) is much more appealing than "I have the best way of being tanky...it's a spell. Yay. The best everything is a spell, and it's on my list. Yay. Aren't I so cool."

They are still squishy though. They have the lowest hp, so they can't tank via HP and they don't really have anything related to evading attack. Additionally, Mage Armor basically shows that the people at WotC meant for them to tank via AC. Its the only AC spell that acts like armor instead of giving you a minimum, like Barkskin does. If they put everything into Dex, they can match the AC of plate armor, though they're not as tanks as a Fighter due to lacking a normal Shield and the Defense Fighting Style.

Just because you personally think that pure casters should be about as tough as a wet piece of paper doesn't mean that the WotC design is wrong as well. When you go into it with the realization that Wizards and Sorcerers were made to tank via AC, Mage Armor and Shield suddenly make a lot more sense.


Also, had to delete that post cause I wrote it via mobile, and realized I could reword that to be so much cleaner at work. XD I'm surprised you understood anything in that ramble of a post. X_X


EDIT: A small thing, tank does not necessarily mean standing in the front line being a tank, I mean it as their method for damage mitigation. Every class, from full caster to martial, needs to have some form of damage mitigation. Otherwise they die instantly due to how quickly damage scales. WotC simply split damage mitigation into HP or AC. Its clear they wanted to do something with evasion, but ended up only giving the Rogue ways to evade damage. Bards are basically left with nothing except some minor healing. It is basically impossible to mitigate damage via evasion since there's no way to avoid being targeted, outside of Sanctuary. Doesn't matter if you stand in the back line, or stand 100 feet away. If they DM decides to ignore everyone and everything else, and they can, then there's nothing you can do.

If they wanted evasion to work as damage mitigation, they'd have needed to add something like a Reaction that lets you move away from an enemy when they get within melee range. Or expanded Attacks of Opportunity to be more like 3.5 where you can actually stop creatures from reaching you. Though that would have gone against the design intent of keeping it simple.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hmm you could expand on this and add more charges with shield(the armor/object) rather than it just adding AC as well.

I've got thoughts about (physical) shields. But no resolutions yet.

a) they should be more "active" than just a passive AC boost.
b) but also they should have some passive benefit.
c) on the third hand, it shouldn't be super complicated to use, because that will just get forgotten.

Ideas (spitballing) for active abilities:

1. Shield Bash (available for anyone with proficiency and shield equipped): give up attack (or reduced damage attack) to reduce enemy defenses/add some condition (less than stunned).
2. Defend Others (feat? class ability?): A better way to intercept attacks and DEX-based saves on others. Like the Interception or Protection fighting style, but more available and better. Fulfill the fiction of raising the shield against a dragon's breath and others sheltering behind it.
3. ??

@sithlordnergal--

mage armor is better than the best non-magical light armor. Which is kinda screwy. But personally, I think that mage armor is fine. Casters can have magic mitigation, but should be weak to physical attacks. They can have passive AC, but should not have active physical defenses other than things anyone can do. And as far as the base game is concerned (not the super-hyper-deadly way some people play), AC 15-20 is what is expected. You're not expected to have AC 20+ ever. Yet shield makes that trivial.

[stoutstien]

I've got thoughts about (physical) shields. But no resolutions yet.

a) they should be more "active" than just a passive AC boost.
b) but also they should have some passive benefit.
c) on the third hand, it shouldn't be super complicated to use, because that will just get forgotten.

Ideas (spitballing) for active abilities:

1. Shield Bash (available for anyone with proficiency and shield equipped): give up attack (or reduced damage attack) to reduce enemy defenses/add some condition (less than stunned).
2. Defend Others (feat? class ability?): A better way to intercept attacks and DEX-based saves on others. Like the Interception or Protection fighting style, but more available and better. Fulfill the fiction of raising the shield against a dragon's breath and others sheltering behind it.
3. ??

Similar to what I'm using.

-Shields set a minimal AC and add <unnamed encounter/scene based THP> if your AC is better.

- instant action to impose shield in front of self or ally when attacked. Adds one of two ability mods/score to Def rating depending on if they dodge or deflect. Can be used on most attacks and area attacks that gave a point if origin like a dragon's breath(Trade off is instant actions will limit what you can do on next turn. It's my attempt to address both rocket tag, the turn order, initiative, and "tanking". Anyone who goes a round being left alone will have more stuff they can do). 1 class is really good at this to the point they can be a prompt to Mobile wall as long as they can commit the effort and may even choose to wear 2 shields.

- anyone with a shield can bash as an action that dazes. Daze prevents movement out of the current "zone" without assistance(Some classes get bonuses to this)

[KorvinStarmast]

If shield is a necessary defensive measure by the game's standards...then why is it cabined in like 2 class lists?

IMO, I'd rather

1. dump shield as a spell. Hard no.
If you look at the illustration in the AD&D 1e books, it depicts a bunch of arrows bouncing off of a shield in front of a spell caster. IIRC, the flat AC was 4 (which is chainmail and shield in that edition) which would translate into AC 18 in this edition. As the original game didn't use proficiency bonuses, and did not penalize monsters for using weapons they were not proficiency in (but did penalize PCs) that all probably comes out in the wash. (I'd need to look up the duration, I think it was longer duration than one round).

So, make shield as reaction a flat 18 AC until start of one's next turn. That mitigates attacks for one round.
That's a reasonable mod for dealing with mooks, keeps magic missiles out, but against Higher CR archers and monsters (c. f. manticore or giant) not quite as effective.

Would that mod make you happy?

PS: your cheesing armor class and bounded accuracy with those 4-per-round-archer-modrons was an interesting illustration of the 'pincushion mage' point. there are other ways to block arrows or reduce their chances to hit.

[sithlordnergal]

And as far as the base game is concerned (not the super-hyper-deadly way some people play), AC 15-20 is what is expected. You're not expected to have AC 20+ ever. Yet shield makes that trivial.

I actually disagree. AC 15-20 is expected at Tier 1 and Tier 2, but its expected that you'll have 20+ AC once you reach Tier 3, and required to survive Tier 4. If you look at higher CR creatures that start popping up in Tier 3 and 4, you'll find they have an attack bonus that makes having 15-20 AC pointless. And they deal enough damage that the only way you can survive is either by not being hit, by resisting the damage, or by having a boat load of bonus HP.

And while I know you play with the belief that things like Balors should be a difficult and dangerous encounter, by the DMG's own encounter building rules a Balor is an Easy Encounter for a level 20 party, and Medium for level 19. WotC pretty clearly made Tier 3 and especially 4 to be the "You fight Gods now" level.


Also, if they didn't expect you to have 20+ AC, why is it the two classes that naturally get Heavy Armor also have access to a fighting style that boosts their AC by 1. Letting them get 21 AC with no magic what so ever?

[JNAProductions]

Hard no.
If you look at the illustration in the AD&D 1e books, it depicts a bunch of arrows bounding off of a shield in front of a spell caster. IIRC, the flat AC was 4 (which is chainmail and shield in that edition) which would be 16 under THACO but is 18 in this edition. (To complicate things, no proficiency bonuses in the original game).

So, make as a reaction a flat 18 AC. That's a reasonable mod for dealing with mooks, keeps magic missiles out, but against Higher CR archers and monsters (c. f. manticore) not quite as effective.

Would that mod make you happy?

PS: your cheesing armor class and bounded accuracy with those 4-per-round-archer-modrons was an interesting illustration of the 'pincushion mage' point. there are other ways to block arrows or reduce their chances to hit.

I won't say your point is wrong, but I feel like you're going about it the wrong way.

AD&D was released in 1977, if my googling is accurate. It's been 46 years since then-just because something was done in AD&D, OD&D, or any other edition of D&D, doesn't mean it has to work that way in 5E.


I actually disagree. AC 15-20 is expected at Tier 1 and Tier 2, but its expected that you'll have 20+ AC once you reach Tier 3, and required to survive Tier 4. If you look at higher CR creatures that start popping up in Tier 3 and 4, you'll find they have an attack bonus that makes having 15-20 AC pointless. And they deal enough damage that the only way you can survive is either by not being hit, by resisting the damage, or by having a boat load of bonus HP.

Also, if they didn't expect you to have 20+ AC, why is it the two classes that naturally get Heavy Armor also have access to a fighting style that boosts their AC by 1. Letting them get 21 AC with no magic what so ever?

You're not expected to be missed very often when facing high CR monsters. That's why you have HP.

AC is still valuable because you shouldn't be facing exclusively high CR monsters.

[KorvinStarmast]

AC is still valuable because you shouldn't be facing exclusively high CR monsters. Agree on that, in part, the rest of your post is noise.
I was making a point about the concept behind the spell. Phoenix has been kicking around ideas on how to make the spell fit better for a couple of years at least, and he's my DM on a once per week game.

I am fully aware that the numbers don't translate too well from one edition to the next.

I also agree with Phoenix that Multi classing by a wizard or a sorcerer to cheese into heavy armor proficiency and keep the ability to cast spells in heavy armor is a root cause of the problem that he identifies with this spell.

Quite frankly, the MC rules could use another scrub.

Also, sithlordnergal is right.
Plate Armor and shield and defensive fighting style is AC 21. PHB only easy to use. By late Tier 2 and Tier 3 my Fighters still get hit a lot since CR increase for monsters means that their to hit increases and many of them have multi attack. Yes, HP mitigates some of that, but not being hit in the first place is even better defense. (Gee, Sun Tzu would probably endorse my point there. :smallwink: )

[sithlordnergal]

You're not expected to be missed very often when facing high CR monsters. That's why you have HP.

AC is still valuable because you shouldn't be facing exclusively high CR monsters.

At high CRs are you expected to be facing high CR monsters. Even the DMG notes that at T4 you're expected to be facing "savage balors, titans, archdevils, lich archmages, and even avatars of the gods themselves". HP does not scale to match the damage those types of creatures deal. If they expected you to be constantly hit by those types of creatures at that level of play, you'd expect to see a sudden HP boost. Like doubling the amount of HP you gain while leveling up. Or those creatures would deal less damage overall.

Instead, they have the classes mitigate damage the same way they did in previous tiers. I.E. via AC, HP, or evading entirely. HP is easy enough, that's always increasing for Barbarians and Druids gain tankier forms and better spells to resist damage. AC is done via magic items you are expected to find.


EDIT: Unless the intent at Tier 4 is rocket tag...but I don't think they were intentionally designing for rocket tag at Tier 4.

EDIT 2: And yeah, while I adore multiclassing, and I would never want to get rid of it because I think it exponentially expands what sort of concepts you can make in DnD on a mechanical level, I fully agree they dropped the ball with casting in armor. I'd be ok if they brought back spell failure chances from 3.5, and added ways to mitigate that failure. That way you can still wear armor as a wizard, but you really need to invest into it if you wanna be good at it.

[GeneralVryth]

I agree that that's sorta what they designed...and then they blew it out of the water with multiclassing. But I'd say that wizards/sorcerers being able to tank at all is a problem. They're supposed to be squishy and depend on not being in the line of fire to stay alive. Not "yeah, I can ignore everything because I have this OP spell."

And if (as someone else said) 1st level slots aren't even a real resource at higher levels (because you don't have other stuff to spend them on), then it's not a spike, it's pretty much a guarantee. Exacerbated by the 5MWD issue.

Personally, I think the class fiction for full casters being squishy and requiring someone beefy to get in the way (and having the ability to do so, which is a separate conversation) is much more appealing than "I have the best way of being tanky...it's a spell. Yay. The best everything is a spell, and it's on my list. Yay. Aren't I so cool."

Being squishier is not the same thing as being completely unable to protect oneself from injury. It's no one's fantasy to be unable to do anything but run and hide when threatened from harm. I guess that is the core difference in view. I don't think casters should be unable to protect themselves, they should just go about it differently (in this case using a TEMPORARY spell to buy time, instead of statically having a more resilient setup).

[stoutstien]

At high CRs are you expected to be facing high CR monsters. Even the DMG notes that at T4 you're expected to be facing "savage balors, titans, archdevils, lich archmages, and even avatars of the gods themselves". HP does not scale to match the damage those types of creatures deal. If they expected you to be constantly hit by those types of creatures at that level of play, you'd expect to see a sudden HP boost. Like doubling the amount of HP you gain while leveling up. Or those creatures would deal less damage overall.

Instead, they have the classes mitigate damage the same way they did in previous tiers. I.E. via AC, HP, or evading entirely. HP is easy enough, that's always increasing for Barbarians and Druids gain tankier forms and better spells to resist damage. AC is done via magic items you are expected to find.


EDIT: Unless the intent at Tier 4 is rocket tag...but I don't think they were intentionally designing for rocket tag at Tier 4.

The intent was to avoid rocket tag. Those high CR NPCs are supposed to spread the love around not just Focus fire down one PC at a time and that's the once a story arch fight they are for. .

If they fought just like everything else besides just bigger numbers....what's the point?

[JNAProductions]

At high CRs are you expected to be facing high CR monsters. Even the DMG notes that at T4 you're expected to be facing "savage balors, titans, archdevils, lich archmages, and even avatars of the gods themselves". HP does not scale to match the damage those types of creatures deal. If they expected you to be constantly hit by those types of creatures at that level of play, you'd expect to see a sudden HP boost. Like doubling the amount of HP you gain while leveling up. Or those creatures would deal less damage overall.

Instead, they have the classes mitigate damage the same way they did in previous tiers. I.E. via AC, HP, or evading entirely. HP is easy enough, that's always increasing for Barbarians and Druids gain tankier forms and better spells to resist damage. AC is done via magic items you are expected to find.


EDIT: Unless the intent at Tier 4 is rocket tag...but I don't think they were intentionally designing for rocket tag at Tier 4.

EDIT 2: And yeah, while I adore multiclassing, and I would never want to get rid of it because I think it exponentially expands what sort of concepts you can make in DnD on a mechanical level, I fully agree they dropped the ball with casting in armor. I'd be ok if they brought back spell failure chances from 3.5, and added ways to mitigate that failure. That way you can still wear armor as a wizard, but you really need to invest into it if you wanna be good at it.

At high levels, you're supposed to face SOME high CR foes.

An Adult Blue Dragon (CR 16) and four Air Elementals (CR 5) is a deadly encounter for four level 17 PCs.
The Dragon has +12 to-hit, and Elementals have +8.
An AC of 21 gives you a chance to be missed 40% of the time from the Dragon and 60% from the Elementals.

[sithlordnergal]

The intent was to avoid rocket tag. Those high CR NPCs are supposed to spread the love around not just Focus fire down one PC at a time and that's the once a story arch fight they are for. .

If they fought just like everything else besides just bigger numbers....what's the point?

They are supposed to spread the love, but at the same time their damage is so high that even if you spread it across the party its still a massive amount of damage. Again, at those tiers you're expected to avoid that the same way you avoided goblin shortbows in Tier 1.

As much as I love 5e DnD, I'll be the first to admit that WotC didn't really make a deep game when it comes to combat. The majority of monsters, from CR 1/4th to CR 30, fight like everyone else. The only mechanical differences between a Balor and a Goblin are bigger numbers, more attacks, which results in more bigger numbers, and some resistances and an ability that makes it harder to kill with an army of peasants.

Monsters with an actually unique method of combat are few and far between. The only ones that instantly come to mind are things like Water Weirds, which focus more on drowning than damage, and Star Spawn Hulks and Seers.



At high levels, you're supposed to face SOME high CR foes.

An Adult Blue Dragon (CR 16) and four Air Elementals (CR 5) is a deadly encounter for four level 17 PCs.
The Dragon has +12 to-hit, and Elementals have +8.
An AC of 21 gives you a chance to be missed 40% of the time from the Dragon and 60% from the Elementals.

I feel like just adding a bunch of low CR enemies isn't very productive for this sort of conversation. Yes, you can technically boost the encounter difficulty by adding them. But at the same time, they don't actually make the battle any more difficult, and if they can be ignored entirely then they aren't actually making the encounter any harder.

Like...according to the encounter building rules one Adult Blue Dragon with 10 Goblins (CR 1/4) is a "Deadly Encounter" for party of four level 17 characters. I think every DM knows that is not a deadly encounter. I feel like its better to look at the average attack bonus in a Tier when you're talking about AC.

And again, the DMG does state that at high level you should be facing things like balors and worse. As your regular adventure. Not as some special boss, but your average adventure.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I feel like just adding a bunch of low CR enemies isn't very productive for this sort of conversation. Yes, you can technically boost the encounter difficulty by adding them. But at the same time, they don't actually make the battle any more difficult, and if they can be ignored entirely then they aren't actually making the encounter any harder.

Like...according to the encounter building rules one Adult Blue Dragon with 10 Goblins (CR 1/4) is a "Deadly Encounter" for party of four level 17 characters. I think every DM knows that is not a deadly encounter. I feel like its better to look at the average attack bonus in a Tier when you're talking about AC.

And again, the DMG does state that at high level you should be facing things like balors and worse. As your regular adventure. Not as some special boss, but your average adventure.

No...that's exactly the intended thing to do. You're expected to use mostly lower-CR monsters, with higher CR as spice, not daily diet. Look at the Xanathar's guidance. If you do the math, the median encountered CR is (fairly closely) half your level. So at level 20, you're expected, on average, to be fighting CR 10s.

And most of your increased survivability comes from other features, not math. More healing (no, it's not a solo game, so people are actually expected to heal each other), abilities to get out of Dodge when the Balor gets near, abilities to force it to have disadvantage, etc. Plus HP (which isn't actually all that different even with a d6 HD). NOT AC. That's the entire point of bounded accuracy. To keep AC (relatively) stable with level. The system is 100% ok with you picking up the "best" mundane armor of your given class and then not going any higher. Yes, all the way to level 20.

And the idea that T3 expects (as in "the system math is predicated on the assumption that") everyone will have 20+ static AC, when all but 2 classes cannot get >20 AC without magic items (which are not system-expected), and those two can only do so if

a) they are in heavy armor
b) they have a shield
c) they have a specific fighting style

is very questionable, if not outright opposed to bounded accuracy. Your AC is not expected, by the system's math, to change significantly with level. And the way it is supposed to change is by increasing your DEX contribution (for non-heavy-armor wearers).

[JNAProductions]

Air Elementals have 90 HP. They won't die to a stray Fireball-they'll take some actual damage before going down.
Air Elementals do 2d8+5 damage per hit, and get two attacks per turn. They can alternatively cause disruption (on a relatively easy Strength save, admittedly) with their Whirlwind.

I do agree that adding goblins or other creatures that can and will die to stray AoE damage doesn't meaningfully make an encounter harder-not without them having some kind of protection or advantageous terrain or something.
But Air Elementals are not that.

[stoutstien]

Eh. I think it's best to chop T4 out of any conversation about what it's "supposed" to look like. It's a mess every which way you look at it. I think they just assumed the table would find a rhythm by then so they stopped trying.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Air Elementals have 90 HP. They won't die to a stray Fireball-they'll take some actual damage before going down.
Air Elementals do 2d8+5 damage per hit, and get two attacks per turn. They can alternatively cause disruption (on a relatively easy Strength save, admittedly) with their Whirlwind.

I do agree that adding goblins or other creatures that can and will die to stray AoE damage doesn't meaningfully make an encounter harder-not without them having some kind of protection or advantageous terrain or something.
But Air Elementals are not that.

Yeah. And Balors (in particular) are not legendary monsters. Which means they're expected to appear with minions. And even legendary monsters do better with a bunch of minions. Solo fights rarely are as challenging as their book rating, even with legendary actions--when you do jack up the numbers to make them challenging, you risk turning it into rocket tag. And both "I got splashed before I could act" and "I splashed the boss before he could act" are highly unsatisfying boss fights.

[KorvinStarmast]

Eh. I think it's best to chop T4 out of any conversation about what it's "supposed" to look like. It's a mess every which way you look at it. I think they just assumed the table would find a rhythm by then so they stopped trying. You get no argument from me on that. Their published campaigns seem to top out at roughly Level 15 or level 12/12.

[sithlordnergal]

No...that's exactly the intended thing to do. You're expected to use mostly lower-CR monsters, with higher CR as spice, not daily diet. Look at the Xanathar's guidance. If you do the math, the median encountered CR is (fairly closely) half your level. So at level 20, you're expected, on average, to be fighting CR 10s.

And most of your increased survivability comes from other features, not math. More healing (no, it's not a solo game, so people are actually expected to heal each other), abilities to get out of Dodge when the Balor gets near, abilities to force it to have disadvantage, etc. Plus HP (which isn't actually all that different even with a d6 HD). NOT AC. That's the entire point of bounded accuracy. To keep AC (relatively) stable with level. The system is 100% ok with you picking up the "best" mundane armor of your given class and then not going any higher. Yes, all the way to level 20.

Problem is there actually aren't actually many abilities that increase your survivability outside of healing at that level. The creatures of that CR tend to be immune to the majority of effects that cause Disadvantage, and have ways of bypassing methods that would protect you. There is also a distinct lack of abilities that let you get out of dodge. Not even the Rogue, which has the best "get out of dodge" ability doesn't really have a way to "get out of dodge" once that balor gets near. If they intended for that then you'd see abilities/spells that allow you to move in response to being hit.





And the idea that T3 expects (as in "the system math is predicated on the assumption that") everyone will have 20+ static AC, when all but 2 classes cannot get >20 AC without magic items (which are not system-expected), and those two can only do so if

a) they are in heavy armor
b) they have a shield
c) they have a specific fighting style

is very questionable, if not outright opposed to bounded accuracy. Your AC is not expected, by the system's math, to change significantly with level. And the way it is supposed to change is by increasing your DEX contribution (for non-heavy-armor wearers).

So, I think I need to clarify a thing. The system does not expect everyone to have a 20+ static AC. It does expect classes that mitigate damage via AC to have 20+ AC. It also pretty clearly expects the party to find AC boosting items over time. It is very much expected to increase over time. Otherwise you wouldn't see attack bonuses higher than about +12 at the most.



Air Elementals have 90 HP. They won't die to a stray Fireball-they'll take some actual damage before going down.
Air Elementals do 2d8+5 damage per hit, and get two attacks per turn. They can alternatively cause disruption (on a relatively easy Strength save, admittedly) with their Whirlwind.

I do agree that adding goblins or other creatures that can and will die to stray AoE damage doesn't meaningfully make an encounter harder-not without them having some kind of protection or advantageous terrain or something.
But Air Elementals are not that.

Reason I put four Air Elementals onto the same par as goblins is that, at Tier 4, they serve the same function as a group of 10 goblins. Yes, they have 90 hp, that just means you'll need a somewhat higher level spell to one shot them. They'll have about as much of an effect on the encounter as the 10 goblins.

[Amnestic]

There I was thinking HP bloat was commonly pointed to as an issue in tier 3/4, but apparently it's actually rocket tag.

[KorvinStarmast]

There I was thinking HP bloat was commonly pointed to as an issue in tier 3/4, but apparently it's actually rocket tag. Why can't it be both? :smallbiggrin:

[PhoenixPhyre]

So, I think I need to clarify a thing. The system does not expect everyone to have a 20+ static AC. It does expect classes that mitigate damage via AC to have 20+ AC. It also pretty clearly expects the party to find AC boosting items over time. It is very much expected to increase over time. Otherwise you wouldn't see attack bonuses higher than about +12 at the most.

No. The system expects you to get hit a lot when facing higher CRs. That's the core fact. Higher CR creatures are expected to hit even the heavy-armor folks between 60 and 80% of the time and the light armored folks basically all the time. That's the system's design. That's how the numbers shake out.

And this whole "this class mitigates via AC" is a back-formation, something you've presumed into the system. Not a system design thing. Because the difference between the cleric (d8) and wizard (d6) is...one hit point per level. Not exactly "I have tons more HP than you do". And in-combat healing isn't supposed to mostly be selfish. Everyone has AC, and everyone's static AC is supposed (at higher levels) to be roughly the same. 17-20, with a couple at 21 if they choose to be particularly tanky (plate + shield + defense style). The only ones you can say "tank with HP" are barbarians, and that's mostly due to Rage. Even a d12 HD is only 3 HP/level more than a d6 HD.

And no, high CR monsters are not immune to most forms of disadvantage or other attack debuffs. That's just simply not true. Because the number of ways to impose disadvantage on one or more attacks is huge. And most high-CR monsters aren't really immune to much of anything in particular, condition-wise. Dragons? Not immune to a single condition. Fiends? Immune to poisoned...which PCs rarely impose. And charmed, in some few cases. And those two account for the vast majority of all CR 15+ monsters. And the others have "standard" immunities for their type, which have been in play since CR 1/8 (ie undead and constructs have particular condition immunities).

[stoutstien]

There I was thinking HP bloat was commonly pointed to as an issue in tier 3/4, but apparently it's actually rocket tag.

They are a feed back loop. NPCs are too tough so you add damage> they die too soon so you add HP/mitigation >NPCs start lasting too long and are boring/more likely to land a 1/100 chance TPK> increase damage>....

And be there are few built in reason to spread attacks out you get rocket tag as a byproduct. it's the easily way to counter both problems even if it's not great for game play.

[sithlordnergal]

No. The system expects you to get hit a lot when facing higher CRs. That's the core fact. Higher CR creatures are expected to hit even the heavy-armor folks between 60 and 80% of the time and the light armored folks basically all the time. That's the system's design. That's how the numbers shake out.

And this whole "this class mitigates via AC" is a back-formation, something you've presumed into the system. Not a system design thing. Because the difference between the cleric (d8) and wizard (d6) is...one hit point per level. Not exactly "I have tons more HP than you do". And in-combat healing isn't supposed to mostly be selfish. Everyone has AC, and everyone's static AC is supposed (at higher levels) to be roughly the same. 17-20, with a couple at 21 if they choose to be particularly tanky (plate + shield + defense style). The only ones you can say "tank with HP" are barbarians, and that's mostly due to Rage. Even a d12 HD is only 3 HP/level more than a d6 HD.

And no, high CR monsters are not immune to most forms of disadvantage or other attack debuffs. That's just simply not true. Because the number of ways to impose disadvantage on one or more attacks is huge. And most high-CR monsters aren't really immune to much of anything in particular, condition-wise. Dragons? Not immune to a single condition. Fiends? Immune to poisoned...which PCs rarely impose. And charmed, in some few cases. And those two account for the vast majority of all CR 15+ monsters. And the others have "standard" immunities for their type, which have been in play since CR 1/8 (ie undead and constructs have particular condition immunities).

No, it really doesn't expect that. It very clearly gives methods to boost your AC higher than 20, and typically make those available to the classes that mitigate damage via their AC. Its not expected that higher AC folks are supposed to be hit between 60 and 80% of the time, its far less. Otherwise the higher AC folks would be gaining abilities similar to the Rogue and Barbarian where they can lower the damage they take. I do agree that light armor folks are supposed to be hit basically all the time...but if you look, those folks have ways to actually mitigate that built into their class.

It is absolutely a system design thing. Clerics are a bit of a hybrid between HP and AC. They have decent armor and Shield of Faith to boost their AC, but they also have a TON of ways to heal themselves up when they're hit. And that 1 HP can make a big difference. And I'd say Druids tank via their HP as well, given Wild Shape and healing on par with a Cleric. WotC tried to make it so Warlocks can tank via HP too by giving them a subclass that grants Temp HP, an at-will Temp HP source, and the best Temp Hp scaling spell in the game. They didn't do it well, but you can tell they tried.

And yeah, most high CR creatures are immune to most things that cause disadvantage. Fear immunity becomes super common, poison immunity is everywhere, charm is common, and most creatures at that CR have some sort of special sense that lets them bypass things like Invisibility. I guess you have the Prone condition that causes it, but most creatures are too big to Grapple at that level, and can stand back up again.

[JNAProductions]

Looking at a Fighter, in the PHB alone, they can hit AC 21. Full Plate, Shield, Defensive Fighting Style. (Or Half Plate and MAM with 16 Dex.)
Evasive Footwork can add to your AC against Opportunity Attacks alone. Defensive Duelist can add up to +6 against one attack.

Barbarians can achieve one point higher AC, 22, with 24 Con, 20 Dex, and a Shield. They can also get Evasive Footwork via Martial Adept and can take Defensive Duelist as well.

But that's the heights of AC you can expect from the PHB.

[KorvinStarmast]

Looking at a Fighter, in the PHB alone, they can hit AC 21. Full Plate, Shield, Defensive Fighting Style. (Or Half Plate and MAM with 16 Dex.)
Evasive Footwork can add to your AC against Opportunity Attacks alone. Defensive Duelist can add up to +6 against one attack.

Barbarians can achieve one point higher AC, 22, with 24 Con, 20 Dex, and a Shield. They can also get Evasive Footwork via Martial Adept and can take Defensive Duelist as well.

But that's the heights of AC you can expect from the PHB.
Nice summary, and the occasional + armor or +shield that drops will boost it here and there.
Or a robe of protection. (Found in quite a few published adventures, I have discovered).
Or a ring of protection.

[JNAProductions]

Yeah-Magic items that boost AC are not something I’d never expect to see.
But they are entirely in the purview of the DM (at least within the PHB alone-later subclasses and the Artificer changed that), not in the players’ hands.

[GeneralVryth]

Looking at a Fighter, in the PHB alone, they can hit AC 21. Full Plate, Shield, Defensive Fighting Style. (Or Half Plate and MAM with 16 Dex.)
Evasive Footwork can add to your AC against Opportunity Attacks alone. Defensive Duelist can add up to +6 against one attack.

Barbarians can achieve one point higher AC, 22, with 24 Con, 20 Dex, and a Shield. They can also get Evasive Footwork via Martial Adept and can take Defensive Duelist as well.

But that's the heights of AC you can expect from the PHB.

The Barbarian in that case is actually 24 AC. Though I don't like counting capstone abilities or really any 17+ abilities because most of them are quite distorting.

If your max level is 16, I think the highest static AC is 21, 23 if supported with Shield of Faith (concentration risk). Shield/Defensive Duelist can temporarily boost that to 28. Ironically, you could do that at level 1 if you have the cash for Full Plate. Which I don't consider a good thing with the system. The other ways that attempted to improve AC scaling are part of what contribute to the AC bloat (besides ease of getting med/heavy prof), because most/all of them stack.

Edit: Make the level 16 max 25, because there is also Haste, but then you're eating up 2 concentrations.