Are Martials really that screwed?

[Tanarii]

I'm curious which non-combat focused class feature fighter's have that you compare to the utility of spell casting?

Are we talking about Fighters here, or the 6 Martial classes?

[Man_Over_Game]

They get the same ability everyone else does to talk to NPCs, look for clues, and interact with the world. Sometimes they also get to use special abilities like Reliable Talent and Expertise but my game is less about special abilities and more about player agency/skill. You don't need anything written on your stat block to realize, "Hey, the Long Fangs hate the Oni Brotherhood! Maybe we can get the Long Fang street rep to cough up some damaging intel." A special ability like Persuasion +12 might get you info for free that you'd otherwise have to pay good money/goods for, but Persuasion +Infinity won't help if you never think to ask the question in the first place.

In a given scenario, a fighter might have two or three ways of approaching a given problem, and 5e magic is so weak that IME a wizard or druid or bard is likely to have pretty much those same two or three ways.



And all of those abilities are equally useless for rescuing your grandmother from a death sentence imposed by the modrons after she's been framed for a theft, especially if you want to avoid starting a war by brute-forcing her out of prison.

Special abilities will come into play when it's time to inflict violence, but that's not the whole adventure.

I didn't think we were describing special abilities to inflict violence. I meant to point out some of casters' abilities that they could use out of combat.

But in your example, you state that Fighters have about 3 means of solving a problem, and that casters have roughly the equivalent.

Would you say that martials have roughly the same value of non-combat features as casters, before or after including spells?

[Asisreo1]

I'm curious which non-combat focused class feature fighter's have that you compare to the utility of spell casting?

They have possible proficiency with athletics. This seems a bit obtuse, but once you realizes it synergizes well with your main attack modifier, the skill becomes pretty useful.

Spellcaster love to imagine themselves as gods with access to the solution to everything until they didn't think Water Breathing was a ritual worth taking. We'll just ask the Druid if he can help. Oh wait, the person that would've chosen Druid chose Wizard instead, because Wizard is the superior class. Now the Barbarian goes for a swim because he's the only one with a high enough Con mod and save to resist the Frigid Water.

Or, the wizard gets ambushed and killed round 1 because they forgot that they have a d6 hit dice and Wisdom(perception) was their tertiary stat at a massive +2. And the Druid thinks he's invincible with infinite wildshape until something casts Conjure Fey and 8 sprites assault them with sleep-bows to knock them out of wildshape and the Druid realizes he's still a scrawny spellcaster with a d8 hit dice and medium armor.

[Skylivedk]

In your experience, at the table, without signifigant homebrewing or buffing, have you ever felt that martials in 5e are actually suffering in any way?

I ask cos I havent. I run a game for 8 people, and the Elf Fighter Sharpshooter is far and away the most powerful threat to my monsters. The Bard comes close, because even if his spell whiffs he still usually has something to do. But the Cleric, Artificer, Sorc, and Druid are not overshadowing the Paladin, Ranger (Beastmaster ranger! though the UA one) Blood Hunter or Battlemaster Fighter at all.

I play as a Wizard, transmuter, with a Paladin and a Cleric. We all feel like we are running on an even keel basically. I actually feel like my wizard was overshadowed until i hit 5th level, except for the utility of my familiar.

But half the posts on here are about martials getting screwed.

Now, what I dont care about, is math. Wizards can do on average 576032DPR while fighters...not interested. That assumes ideal scenarios, which in my experience are rarely present in DnD. Something as simple as the Wizard targetting the wrong monster with the wrong spell can gimp their contribution to a fight, same as martials.

What I do care about is your actual experience, because whether or not martials suck is a truly subjective idea. Even if objectively worse, they can still be, subjectively, better.

For sandbox-style campaigns accumulation of long-term resources (armies, land etc.), there is no comparison. Most martials get close to nothing that will match stuff like Planar Binding, Clone, Simulacrum, True Polymorph etc.

For a less sandboxy approach the divide becomes a lot smaller. It's definitely possible to have games without feeling much of a divide, since full-casters more benefit from having a very wide range of potential answers rather than each answer being significantly stronger (while they also have some of those), correspondingly using the wrong answer/spell can be straight detrimental resulting in classes with very different skill floors and ceiling

[Trask]

For sandbox-style campaigns accumulation of long-term resources (armies, land etc.), there is no comparison. Most martials get close to nothing that will match stuff like Planar Binding, Clone, Simulacrum, True Polymorph etc.

This is very true, which is why I make it a point in my setting building to attach inherent strings or limits on casters from an RP perspective. A cleric is somewhat limited by what the Gods will allow, a druid is a creepy witchy forest dude who men fear, wizards warlocks and bards are also feared and limited by the wizard council/gods or church/angry mobs. I find these pretty effective, even if they are only setting fluff, at helping the more traditionally "heroic" classes like fighters and barbarians at playing on an equal level in the factional sandbox with the reality benders.

[MeimuHakurei]

I see the problem with "Schrödinger's Spellcaster" to be a different one - the ability to change prepared spells and solve problems with slots means that all adventures must be 6-8 encounters per day and there must be zero downtime opportunity at any point or else the casters will break the game wide open. Meanwhile, you never ever have to bend over backwards to prevent martials from breaking the game since the only relevant factors they bring to the table is higher base HP and usually more DPR vs. a single target - and casters aren't too strained to reach comparable HP/AC/Damage figures.

[Skylivedk]

This is very true, which is why I make it a point in my setting building to attach inherent strings or limits on casters from an RP perspective. A cleric is somewhat limited by what the Gods will allow, a druid is a creepy witchy forest dude who men fear, wizards warlocks and bards are also feared and limited by the wizard council/gods or church/angry mobs. I find these pretty effective, even if they are only setting fluff, at helping the more traditionally "heroic" classes like fighters and barbarians at playing on an equal level in the factional sandbox with the reality benders.

Yeah that's one of two main approaches I've used as well, the two being:
1. Change the in-fiction
2. Add sandboxy friendly out of combat abilities to a couple of classes.

For 1 I had a shard system for crafting magic items. Casters could spend time to slowly generate shards, but the quick way to get shards was to kill casters and suck them dry of magic juice. More powerful casters gave better shards.

For 2 I've added a bunch seemingly smaller abilities that aid in recruiting and managing NPCs plus some out of combat problem solving

[Tes]

From what I've seen this mindset comes from the very easy difficulty most campaigns feature.

If an 16-18 AC D8-D10 Hitdie class is good enough as Frontliner casters are going to solve all "problems" very easy, since combat is trivial to begin with, the Wizard can sling a Fireball every fight with 3 Encounters a day and there isn't much of a point in defined party roles since you'll manage without optimization anyway.
Around the same alley we also have Barbarians that can use Rage and be Rechless every fight.

What most martials are potentially outperforming everyone else is being a big bad of effective HP the other team has to deal with on top of the casters and since most enemies in the game are some kind of melee archetype, they're also keeping stuff from running at the casters.

If the Wizard can only throw a Fireball for 2 of the 6-8 Encounters, healing actually matters because you take damage and can't just Long Rest as soon as you run out of hit dice and healing after the 2nd Short rest and 3rd encounter. That's when Martials matter and is how the game claims to be designed.
A caster running out of steam is going to downgrade from 3rd++ level Spells to Cantrips, 1st and 2nd level. That's a much steeper nosedive than Battlemaster running out of Superiority dice. Rogues never really loose efficiency in fights altogether, Barbarians are probably hit the hardest until they have enough rages to sustain themselves every day. Overall hitting things with a big stick 2+ a turn is gonna be better than a Cantrip (unless that Cantrip is EB).

Athletics and Acrobatics both shine in 3dimensional interactive environments, not exactly the most natural element to include in a theater of mind or on a battlemap. Gaps, ledges etc, horizontal and vertical obstacles to avoid is hard to do in DnD. Opponents hiding around a corner where sitting back 60+ feet and slinging spells isn't an option. Sneaking around in better positions before combat starts. Tuning a cart on it's side to have some cover against archers, changing the battlemap outside of Initiative in preparation. Address all that and it matters how good your Martials are.
If every fight happens as a slug fest where both sides slap each other in an open field with a few things granting cover, ranged combat and spells are going to be more powerful.
If you allow all casters to fiddle with AoE spells until they don't hit any allies but still gets all opponents engaged in a brawl with them, sure. If your prison dungeon only has a couple magical locks and the Rogue isn't needed. If anything remotely magical can only be noticed by someone with Arcana Proficiency before it blows into someone's face. Ofc Martials are going to be underwhelming.

With 6-8 encounters and 2-3 Short rests, trees to throw on goblin formations, opponents trying good old "Geek the Mage" tactics martials are fine.
Effective HP on both sides have to matter as a valuable party resource to make a Sword and Board guy in Plate or Martials altogether matter. If you're not just able to blow opponents up in 3 rounds, full heal after every fight and call it a day once you're somewhat banged up and winded. The Rogue still hits at full power on encounter 8, when the Cleric is clinging to hist last Spellslot to bring someone back up after they drop.

The big problem here is that it's hard to do as a DM. Your party might simply not have a tanky martial, a healer or anyone willing to cast control over damage spells. So you kinda end up adjusting your encounters to let your party have boring adventuring days around their resource management habits.
In a party with 3 full casters and a slightly unoptimized Martial, that's gonna suck for the martial. You also can't just expect from your party of roleplayers to rise up to the challenge. It's a real possibility they're just gonna TPK to a deadly encounter if they never had to play smart before after they run out of red buttons that say "I solve combat encounters".

That's why a session 0 is so important, as well as variance. It's fine to run 3 encounter 3 Short Rest Adventuring days. In that case you should sometimes actively do something to compensate your Martials for that. Opponents with Spell Resistance, enemy Spellcasters using Counter Spell or Dispel Magic, a few flying critters that go straight for the backline or maybe the Fighter gets teleported away and needs to do something important/solve a riddle/gets to fight an enemy in a duel once in a while.

Making a campaign work around a particular party composition is tough. Especially if you're running something like 8 players and/or if only 5 of those show up every given week.

I can universally recommend using the "recommended" amounts of Encounters and Rests to make Martials relevant though. Even at higher levels 8 Encounters is going to change things.

[MrStabby]

In my experience casters do outshine martial characters for most of the game. Only in the early levels, up to about 7 or 8 is there really any parity.

Of course this is campaign and DM dependant as well.

It comes down to player agency. There is a certain style of DM, often called "a Good DM" (a genuinely good DM does what is right for their table, this may not be) that lets players solve problems, doesn't railroad them and lets their solutions work if reasonable. Casters have two obstacles to goodhood - having the right spell and having the spell slot available to cast it. Player freedom can deal with either or both of these.

Divination magic can solve the former - learning strengths, weaknesses, layout of dungeons, thoughts, plans, defences, locations of targets. The kind of thing you can do whilst preparing in town or travelling to your destination. Or the DM might waive travel as a means to screw classes like the ranger and not give any time in towns because they don't like the game having a social pillar or whatever... sometimes it happens.

Having the spell power available is similarly easy with a DM that doesn't railroad the party through every encounter. If the DM allows stealth, teleportation or mobility, diplomacy/suggestion or any one of a whole load of other tools to circumvent encounters then it is pretty easy to conserve the resources you need for the bits that can't be circumvented.

I am not saying that this permissive DM style that doesnt have every dungeon be a linear chain of encounters, each of which must be overcome by violence is the right one - just that it is common and there are drawbacks to either style.


That said, in my experience the feeling of the gap in power comes not just from how much casters can do - but when. Compare Knock with picking a lock for example. The rogue might tryand pick the lock but if the lock turns out to bereally complex and hard to pick then it falls to the caster to solve. Now this might still be only one lock in every 20, but it means that the most epicallyhard locks are solved by casters and the easier, less remarkable feats are performed by rogues.

Is this an issue? I think this one depends on the player rather than the game. There are two ways to think about power - it is either what you do do or it is what you could do. If you feel power or relative power is about what a character could do then your rogue probably feels a bit inadiquate; evn if the cleric decides not to prepare knock any more this is something that they could do to be better at your thing than you are. You know that if your adventure were to be breaking past locked doors then they could switch back. On the other hand if you think of power asbeingabout what actually gets done,then the rogue who handles 90% of locks is fine and there isn't an issue.

Some problems are more niche than others. I used knock as an example for something pretty specific but there are alsosome pretty generic solutions to problems as well. Polymorph is one that gets mentioned quite a bit. A DM can try and have challenges that require a broad range of ability scores to solve to ensure that the party barbarian can use their strength... but if the druid can wildshape into something stronger it feels a lot less special. Now of course if the druid player wishes, they may give the barbarian permission to shine and to not use their abilities just then; more likely to happen if the task is relatively unimportant and the difficulty is more trivial and a mere 20 strength is probably adequate for the job.



I do get that it is entirely possible to build and to DM a campaign that is balanced between casters and martials - the endless stream of quests that absolutely MUST be done ASAP with no rests, linear strings of encounters of just the right difficulty that they are a challenge but no need to circumvent, lots of magic items that grant abilities to be found but never any scrolls for the casters... and lots of combat and little exploration or social stuff and all taking place in the bottom third of levels. I am also going to say that this can be fun - it isn't wrong to have a campaign like this, but it isn't to everyone's tastes.

Even in combat things can be a bit one sided. A caster can generally hit a target's weakness,a martial generally targets only their AC. Not a problem if the DM just throws bag-of-meat monsters at you with modest AC. Hitting it with a piece of sharp metal is ofthen then still the right answer. Some times though it is better to hit a wisdom save or a dexterity save; a caster might not have every spell available at any point in time but they usually have enough to be able to target at least two different saves/potential weak points - twice what a fighter might. The more unusual the combat, the more cool abilities get thrown around the less the fighter excells.

[Pex]

No

Martials handle themselves well in combat. They can bring about the dead condition fast, have various defenses against attacks, and can apply conditions other than dead to get bad buys closer to the dead condition.

Outside of combat they do fine. They have freedom to get the skills proficiencies they want. DCs are reasonable to achieve, even without proficiency. At least they're supposed to be. If everything is DC Don't Bother blame your DM.

Martials cannot do everything, and they aren't supposed to. Spellcasters cannot do everything either, but it's perfectly fine that spellcasters can do some things martials can't and vice versa. It's not a tragedy of epic proportions when the spellcaster saves the day with a spell a martial could not achieve. Hooray for the spellcaster he gets the party across the chasm. Hooray for the martial he guides the party through the mountains with no loss of time, equipment, or exhaustion.

[Waazraath]

No

Martials handle themselves well in combat. They can bring about the dead condition fast, have various defenses against attacks, and can apply conditions other than dead to get bad buys closer to the dead condition.

Outside of combat they do fine. They have freedom to get the skills proficiencies they want. DCs are reasonable to achieve, even without proficiency. At least they're supposed to be. If everything is DC Don't Bother blame your DM.

Martials cannot do everything, and they aren't supposed to. Spellcasters cannot do everything either, but it's perfectly fine that spellcasters can do some things martials can't and vice versa. It's not a tragedy of epic proportions when the spellcaster saves the day with a spell a martial could not achieve. Hooray for the spellcaster he gets the party across the chasm. Hooray for the martial he guides the party through the mountains with no loss of time, equipment, or exhaustion.

Amen.

I seriously don't understand some of the examples that are given here, by the people advocating there is a gap between what martials and casters can contribute. Take "the locked door". Yes, Knock can work. It also produces a loud sound that can be heard in a 300ft radius, sets of the alarms in the entire vicinity of the dungeon, spoiling surprises. It's useless in any stealth/infiltration mission. In general, it's a pretty bad spell, which only has a use in very specific circumstances. A rogue with experitise and some time will be enough to bypass almost any lock, without spending a limited rescource. And if noise isn't an issue, a high stength character (hey, that mostly would be... a martial!) with a hammer, crowbar or axe will do, given enough time. And who exactly has this spell? No bard or sorcerer I've every seen is going to take this, given "very few spells known" of each level. So we have only have the wizard, that might learn this spell if he ever picks it up, and might memorize it for the day (at the expense of other another spell). This isn't an example of "caster invalidating martials", it's an example of "a very specific caster being able to badly emulate something a martial can do all day long, but having to spend limited rescources to do so".

Same for the chasm, ridge or other climbing challange. Yeah, a caster with spiderclimb or fly can easily bypass it. Great. But in the average dungeon, where you don't know how many encounters you face, you don't want to waste resources like this. Cause there might be another chasm, or another ledge, or something else. And you might be in 3, 5 or 10 combats after this, and don't want to throw away spells on challanges that other characters can overcome with skill, strength, and some tools. In games where resource management is a thing (which really is the game as intended and is balanced against), I've never seen a caster throw out spells in situation like this, unless in emergencies. And I've seen plenty casters 'dry' halfway a dungeon with no time to pause, regretting spending all slots too easiliy.

[Xervous]

I encountered another lens through which to view this topic in a thread some months prior. Martials are a constant, a dependable baseline whose time in the spotlight is governed primarily by good rolls and Fighter Friendly Fiat. Casters on the other hand have tools for selectively seizing the spotlight by mustering a spell that goes well beyond the standards set by martials. In some cases this is trivial to observe, like Locate Object solving the theft of the Duchess’s ring that everyone knelt to kiss before the grand ball. Other cases like a combat that is decided by a well aimed casting of web are more subjective. In the aforementioned thread martial players commented on feeling like cleanup duty after the caster decided “this is the encounter I’ll have the spotlight for”. It is this absence of options presented to martials for electively elevating their contributions to a given scene that can produce a feeling of inequality.

Never mind that there were four meat bag slogs prior to this encounter where the martials were statistical blenders spreadsheeting their way over the opposition by having narrow combat potency. They arrive at a pivotal plot point and the wizard can potentially seize the spotlight and be the primary driver in the narrative by virtue of his class, in absence of DM enabling, only denied by DM crafted countermeasures. In contrast the martial generally lacks such options and must rely on the DM providing an option of similar potency available only to them in order to produce a similar result. But even then it’s not the same, the wizard did it because he’s a wizard, the fighter does it because the DM said he could.

While a good DM can smooth things over greatly the system as presented does not distribute equal narrative authority to all the classes. This is a nonzero part of the martial/caster imbalance that too often gets brushed aside in favor of number crunching discussions. The ability or relative inability to make an impact when desired.

[ZRN]

I seriously don't understand some of the examples that are given here, by the people advocating there is a gap between what martials and casters can contribute. Take "the locked door". Yes, Knock can work. It also produces a loud sound that can be heard in a 300ft radius, sets of the alarms in the entire vicinity of the dungeon, spoiling surprises. It's useless in any stealth/infiltration mission. In general, it's a pretty bad spell, which only has a use in very specific circumstances. A rogue with experitise and some time will be enough to bypass almost any lock, without spending a limited rescource. And if noise isn't an issue, a high stength character (hey, that mostly would be... a martial!) with a hammer, crowbar or axe will do, given enough time. And who exactly has this spell? No bard or sorcerer I've every seen is going to take this, given "very few spells known" of each level. So we have only have the wizard, that might learn this spell if he ever picks it up, and might memorize it for the day (at the expense of other another spell). This isn't an example of "caster invalidating martials", it's an example of "a very specific caster being able to badly emulate something a martial can do all day long, but having to spend limited rescources to do so".

This is one of those areas where the designers did a subtly good job of addressing the "omnipotent caster" complaints of earlier editions. Spells like Knock and Invisibility still exist and still let spellcasters bypass certain challenges, but mechanically speaking they're usually not as good as a rogue with the right skills. This is probably the optimal choice to allow for a range of party compositions:

If your party has a rogue but not a wizard, they can open doors and scout sneakily.
If your party has a rogue AND a wizard, the rogue is way better at opening doors and scouting sneakily (although the wizard may be able to make him even better).
If your party has a wizard and no rogue, the wizard can prep those spells so the party isn't screwed when they come to a locked door.

As for the broader "martials screwed" question, I think even at high levels where spellcasters can do crazy stuff that martials can't (flying, teleportation, resurrection, etc), a LOT of those abilities are best used either on the whole party or on specific other characters. Like, is the fighter player really jealous that the wizard "gets" to spend his limited resources scrying enemies and teleporting the party around? So there are relatively few in-game situations in a normal adventure where the rest of the party has to sit around and watch the spellcasters do cool stuff.

That said, of COURSE spellcasters can do cooler things! That's what magic is for! But I wouldn't call that martials being "screwed;" part of the appeal of playing a fighter is that you're such a badass that you can kill a dragon WITHOUT special powers.

[Man_Over_Game]

I see the problem with "Schrödinger's Spellcaster" to be a different one - the ability to change prepared spells and solve problems with slots means that all adventures must be 6-8 encounters per day and there must be zero downtime opportunity at any point or else the casters will break the game wide open. Meanwhile, you never ever have to bend over backwards to prevent martials from breaking the game since the only relevant factors they bring to the table is higher base HP and usually more DPR vs. a single target - and casters aren't too strained to reach comparable HP/AC/Damage figures.

That's my thing about the whole "Schrodinger's Caster" issue. Sure, the caster isn't going to have every spell prepared for every instance, but how does anyone else fare better?

I see the Schrodinger's Caster fallacy come up as a straw man. A false concern. It's the reason that casters aren't perfect. But the question isn't whether casters are perfect or not, but rather how they compare against martials. Casters might not be perfect, but are they better?

I've noticed that many that people that bring up Schrodinger's Caster issues often opt not to answer the question directly. It's used as a replacement for a direct response, possibly because there isn't enough evidence to support the claim. "If my answer can't be good, I'll just have to make theirs worse" kind of mentality.



The biggest piece of evidence supporting martials, to compensate for the casters' possibility of spells, I've seen so far is Athletics, which is...eh? Sure, Athletics has some decent uses in combat, but so does Create Bonfire, or Guidance. Is it that much better than a Wizard's Investigation or a Cleric's Perception? If there was a notable difference in use/value, does it exceed the value of a single cantrip? Because I know when I play a caster that I basically use 2-3 out of all of my spells for direct combat, and the rest all go towards utility.

[Asisreo1]

People see spellcasters around 5th+ level as above and beyond for any situations, and generally they can do some stuff. But people forget their highest spell is only available 2-3 times a day, when they use those up, they're left with spells that aren't quite as powerful in the scenario since they're usually fighting monsters greater than themselves.

Fireball/counterspell only works 2 times at 5th level, they're your best spells but they're also your most rare. At higher levels, you get more chances to fireball and you can even fireball more effectively, but not more effectively than the highest spells on your list.

Take a Behir, for instance. You don't need counterspell or dispel magic, but keep those in your back pocket. Let's assume you've used your second ASI increase to bring your Dex to +4, mage armor brings your AC to 17 and shield would bring it to 23 if the Behir decides to physically hit you. If the Behir does get close enough to be physical, it's going to restrict first. A 13 dice roll isn't great for it, but if it hits, it has advantage on it's bite and biting you would blind you, preventing most means of escape. However, a behir would likely use it's lightning breath as it's an AoE. This flips it and forces the wizard to make the save. And they have to make a 12 dice roll, which is slightly less than 50/50. At level 11, this damage can be enough to instantly knock a wizard out, at a 66 average.

Meanwhile, you have 6th level spells at your disposal, but only once. The 6th level spell is your current 9th level spell. There's a few damage-dealing spells up here but their average damage isn't something to spin your head about in relation to a Behir. Even a disintegrate doesn't get through half of a Behir's hp, and if the spellcaster does it, they're left with no more for the rest of the encounter/day. Period. No way to get 6th+ level spells back short of a long rest. You can hold monster, but you've only have 2 of those in the encounter/day without a refresh ability, and usually that brings it only to 3. If it's fortunate enough to save, it wastes your 3/day. If it doesn't, great! But it's usually the Martials capitalizing on that.

Either way, effectively fighting the Behir will drain your 3-4 powerful abilities and next combat, you will see that you have less, or you're holding back in case something greater comes but the martials are holding the team together in the meantime.

[MaxWilson]

I didn't think we were describing special abilities to inflict violence. I meant to point out some of casters' abilities that they could use out of combat.

But in your example, you state that Fighters have about 3 means of solving a problem, and that casters have roughly the equivalent.

Would you say that martials have roughly the same value of non-combat features as casters, before or after including spells?

In my games? Yes. You just quoted me saying exactly that and I still stand by it. 5E magic is very combat-oriented. Note that:

For sandbox-style campaigns accumulation of long-term resources (armies, land etc.), there is no comparison. Most martials get close to nothing that will match stuff like Planar Binding, Clone, Simulacrum, True Polymorph etc.

For a less sandboxy approach the divide becomes a lot smaller. It's definitely possible to have games without feeling much of a divide, since full-casters more benefit from having a very wide range of potential answers rather than each answer being significantly stronger (while they also have some of those), correspondingly using the wrong answer/spell can be straight detrimental resulting in classes with very different skill floors and ceiling

I agree with skylivedk here, just want to explicitly note that I consider stuff like Planar Binding and Clone combat-oriented. If you *do* decide to solve your grandmother's legal problems with brute force by starting a war with the modrons, and if you happen to be a high-level PC, a spellcaster who can generate their own army will have many advantages over a fighter who has to recruit or negotiate for an army, but I consider that combat-oriented stuff, and starting wars has a cost and is not ideal (especially if the modrons were previously your potential allies against a bigger looming threat).

This is very true, which is why I make it a point in my setting building to attach inherent strings or limits on casters from an RP perspective. A cleric is somewhat limited by what the Gods will allow, a druid is a creepy witchy forest dude who men fear, wizards warlocks and bards are also feared and limited by the wizard council/gods or church/angry mobs. I find these pretty effective, even if they are only setting fluff, at helping the more traditionally "heroic" classes like fighters and barbarians at playing on an equal level in the factional sandbox with the reality benders.

One setting conceit that I like is that using magic leaves identifiable marks on the spellcaster ("Mythmaker") and also breaks Reality in the local vicinity so that other Myths like trolls, ghosts, vampires, and witches can now exist here.

Result: spellcasters aren't welcome in Real society, only on the fringes of civilization where things already aren't Real.

[xroads]

What I do care about is your actual experience, because whether or not martials suck is a truly subjective idea. Even if objectively worse, they can still be, subjectively, better.

I'm in two games and in both cases, the parties are predominantly martials. And both times everyone called dibs on the martial classes first. So I don't think martials are screwed by any means.

From my experience, both martials and casters work together just fine. Martials handle the DPS while casters handle the battlefield control and support. Some casters can nova for some pretty serious damage, but then they have to rely on rests to recover. Where as martials can consistently bring the pain.

[prabe]

I'm in two games and in both cases, the parties are predominantly martials. And both times everyone called dibs on the martial classes first. So I don't think martials are screwed by any means.

While I don't think martials are particularly screwed, this doesn't correlate as much to me as "how complicated a character do I want to run" does. I'm in at least one game with really smart people with really thinky jobs, and when they play D&D to relax they don't want to be super-thinky about it, so they end up playing simpler (read: martial) classes.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's not exactly that impactful, though. Casters generally get the same amount of skills as martials, and the big difference between the two, in terms of magic vs skills, is that casters have magic.

The issue with relying on equipment/skills/feats to justify how martials can keep up with casters if, of course, that casters have access to all those things too.

THIS.

This, right here, is the problem with all "fighters can just use skills and roleplay past problems" arguments-- EVERYONE can use skills and roleplay their way past problems, no matter what else is on their sheet. Fighty types in 5e generally do fine in combat, because they get unique and level-appropriate tools for killing things and surviving attacks. Fighty types in 5e generally are less effective out of combat because they don't.

Are they TOO ineffective outside combat? In my experience (and I've run up to 17th level now), no-- skills and roleplay with a decent GM work fine from 1-20, martial players generally wanted a simple experience to begin with, casters generally don't wind up taking many of the more niche "replace a skill" spells, the fighter's player is usually involved in planning how to use those spells, and overall the sheer power of spells is much less than in past editions.

That said, the lack of explicit mechanical support does make martial characters more vulnerable to bad GMs who rely too heavily on die rolls and a "guy at the gym" view of skills.

[MrStabby]

That's my thing about the whole "Schrodinger's Caster" issue. Sure, the caster isn't going to have every spell prepared for every instance, but how does anyone else fare better?

I see the Schrodinger's Caster fallacy come up as a straw man. A false concern. It's the reason that casters aren't perfect. But the question isn't whether casters are perfect or not, but rather how they compare against martials. Casters might not be perfect, but are they better?

I've noticed that many that people that bring up Schrodinger's Caster issues often opt not to answer the question directly. It's used as a replacement for a direct response, possibly because there isn't enough evidence to support the claim. "If my answer can't be good, I'll just have to make theirs worse" kind of mentality.



The biggest piece of evidence supporting martials, to compensate for the casters' possibility of spells, I've seen so far is Athletics, which is...eh? Sure, Athletics has some decent uses in combat, but so does Create Bonfire, or Guidance. Is it that much better than a Wizard's Investigation or a Cleric's Perception? If there was a notable difference in use/value, does it exceed the value of a single cantrip? Because I know when I play a caster that I basically use 2-3 out of all of my spells for direct combat, and the rest all go towards utility.

I think the whole "Schrodinger's Caster" BS comes about because these kind of things come out in a conversation with multiple people. Person A suggests a hypothetical caster has spells A, B, C, D and another suggests Spells E, F, G and H... then someone suggests that they are refering to the same caster, or that casters are unable to change their spells between days or whatever.

There sometimes seems to be a stance that it is unreasonable to have perfect foresight of what is ahead - divination magic is flawed, research is difficult or whatever. It is a pretty reasonable view in a lot of games. Sometimes it gets taken to the opposite extreme; to assume any information and foresight is unreasonable. Raiding a red dragon lair inside a volcano but assuming that no one is going to swap in some kind of elemental protection. Not all casters are prepared casters, assuming that they are is wrong. Assuming that none of them are is just as bad.

Likewise with time - yeah, sometimes you are in a rush and you might not have time to change your spells. From time to time it happens. Assuming you will ALWAYS without exception be able to shift your spells to meet your challenge is a heroic assumption and probably wont work in every campaign. Assuming you will never have timeto is just as bad.

And you are right, there is a bit of a martial equivelant - it seems fine to assume that a fighter will find a magical polearm but less fine that a wizard will find a scroll of Fly. I don't think that they are truly equivelant though as without a polearm a fighter might be working at about 80% of what they would with it, whereas a spellcaster would probably still be in the region of 95% as effective.

Personally I think that this whole thing is arguingin bad faith by some people (not all). First of all conflate there existing a gap between casters and martials to "casters can do anything all the time", then argue that casters cannot do anything all the time. Give themselves a pat on the back and claim they have proven there is no gap between casters and martials.

Casters being more useful in some pillars a campaign at a given level is not incompatible with there being a spell that a caster does not have prepared. You can be at a locked door and not have knock prepared but instead turn into some powerful beast using polymorph and smash the door down.

[Man_Over_Game]

THIS.

This, right here, is the problem with all "fighters can just use skills and roleplay past problems" arguments-- EVERYONE can use skills and roleplay their way past problems, no matter what else is on their sheet. Fighty types in 5e generally do fine in combat, because they get unique and level-appropriate tools for killing things and surviving attacks. Fighty types in 5e generally are less effective out of combat because they don't.

Are they TOO ineffective outside combat? In my experience (and I've run up to 17th level now), no-- skills and roleplay with a decent GM work fine from 1-20, martial players generally wanted a simple experience to begin with, casters generally don't wind up taking many of the more niche "replace a skill" spells, the fighter's player is usually involved in planning how to use those spells, and overall the sheer power of spells is much less than in past editions.

That said, the lack of explicit mechanical support does make martial characters more vulnerable to bad GMs who rely too heavily on die rolls and a "guy at the gym" view of skills.

I would have been totally cool with it if martials got notably more skills, and there was more mechanical support for skills in the books (for example, what's an "epic" level of a Medicine check?).

But I think spellcasters get maybe one less skill than most martials, when everyone gets at least 4. Plus ~2 languages or tools.

Even so, there's generally two that are "especially" effective for martials, with Athletics and Acrobatics. If someone didn't have Athletics in your party, would that be enough to change an encounter? What about Featherfall? Or Radiant damage? Or a means of dealing with magical Darkness?

I like to encourage people to use skills. If a character wants to Frankenstein someone back to life with a DC 25 Medicine check, I'd let them, but I'd do so against the book. There's no guidance as to how valuable your skills are supposed to be, or how they could do a high-level feat like that. In fact, there's barely any mention of skills doing anything beyond "mundane" things, if you used Xanathar's DC's as a reference (20 DC Tinker's Tools check to make an improvised repair, I think). There's no noted threshold that states "Now you do supernatural things". For reference, the only mentioned DC 30s in the game involve interacting with magical items, most DC 25s are Saving Throws, and manacles are one of the few high level DC examples we get.

Making skills decent is a lot of work for a DM. The fact that I have to put in any work at all for it, when a friggin' spell system from DnD is easier, implies a serious problem to me.

[KorvinStarmast]

In my experience casters do outshine martial characters for most of the game. Only in the early levels, up to about 7 or 8 is there really any parity.

I will say this. The first time our cleric dropped an earthquake spell during a battle, it was a hilarious case of "sometimes, the caster can disrupt a fight."

My champion had no flying magic item, so he had to climb around for a few rounds just to get at the enemy who had been dropped into a big old 60' crevasse. (The Ranger just sniped away with his Longbow...)

[Reevh]

My played experience is that martials are perfectly fine. And if any really falling far behind for whatever reason, our DM is pretty good at finding interesting ways to help them catch up with the rest of the table.

[Reevh]

Same for the chasm, ridge or other climbing challange. Yeah, a caster with spiderclimb or fly can easily bypass it. Great. But in the average dungeon, where you don't know how many encounters you face, you don't want to waste resources like this. Cause there might be another chasm, or another ledge, or something else. And you might be in 3, 5 or 10 combats after this, and don't want to throw away spells on challanges that other characters can overcome with skill, strength, and some tools. In games where resource management is a thing (which really is the game as intended and is balanced against), I've never seen a caster throw out spells in situation like this, unless in emergencies. And I've seen plenty casters 'dry' halfway a dungeon with no time to pause, regretting spending all slots too easiliy.

Heh, with my fighter, I can have a long jump as much as 153 feet (Githyanki Psi-Knight, so this is using Jump), carrying a rope across with me. Yeah, my sorcerer party mate can just dimension door across, but that requires a pretty significant spell slot to do, while I'm mostly not likely to miss that Jump spell I get from my Githyanki heritage. Even without Jump, I have a long jump up to 51 feet, without using any significant resources.

But even then, this is a rare circumstance. Most of the time the challenges we come across can be solved by trying things with skills. Sometimes we fail, and that's interesting too.

[xroads]

While I don't think martials are particularly screwed, this doesn't correlate as much to me as "how complicated a character do I want to run" does. I'm in at least one game with really smart people with really thinky jobs, and when they play D&D to relax they don't want to be super-thinky about it, so they end up playing simpler (read: martial) classes.

Good point.

Though I suppose "simple" is as good as a selling point as any other. After thinking about it, complex is the reason we don't play Hero System, RIFTS, or even D&D 4e.

But playing devil's advocate for a second here, perhaps casters are screwed because they're too complicated to play? This might be why fighter, rogue, & barbarian are ranked among the top five most popular classes (source: Is Your D&D Character Rare?).

Though it's worth noting that wizard & cleric take up the other two slots.

[prabe]

But playing devil's advocate for a second here, perhaps casters are screwed because they're too complicated to play? This might be why fighter, rogue, & barbarian are ranked among the top five most popular classes (source: Is Your D&D Character Rare?).

I have at times gotten tired of playing spellchuckers, so there might be something to this. I think it may also be in part that so much of the fiction that is the inspirational foundation for the game is centered around non-casters (Gandalf aside). Many people plausibly have someone like Conan as their ideal of a hero in Fantasy fiction, so that's what they want to play.

[Morty]

Having played a rogue, being weak wasn't my concern so much as being just mediocre and boring. In combat, I sneak attacked a lot and that was it - one tactics only, forever. Out of combat, I enjoyed having a good selection of skills, but there wasn't anything to really look forward to or get excited about. I had a number of things I could reliably to and that was once again it, forever. The paladin and wizard, meanwhile, got to do actually exciting things with magic - particularly illusions in the wizard's case. The fact that I could do those boring and reliable things all day long was cold comfort.

Being a battlemaster fighter was a little better, since at least Action Surge and the maneuvers gave me some choices and the ability to just go nuts and erase an enemy in one round if I felt like it and was lucky. Out of combat, though... yeah. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't a combat-heavy one-shot and the GM hadn't been generous with short rests.

[Man_Over_Game]

I have at times gotten tired of playing spellchuckers, so there might be something to this. I think it may also be in part that so much of the fiction that is the inspirational foundation for the game is centered around non-casters (Gandalf aside). Many people plausibly have someone like Conan as their ideal of a hero in Fantasy fiction, so that's what they want to play.

I can definitely agree with that. The concern I have is that there isn't really a balance to that. If you want to play something simple, you have to play a martial. If you want to play something complex, you have to play a caster.

The issue is that there's a big difference between the playstyles of a martial vs. a caster. We already have a few options for simple ranged characters, if you count Dex Fighters and Warlocks. But what if you wanted to play a complex melee martial?

Look at the Champion. Made for simplicity. But does it on par with something a bit less simple, like the Battlemaster? Does it make up for its lack of options in some way?

Is there that big of a difference between Champions and Battlemasters in terms of power level? Probably not big enough to ruin a game, but still worth mention and addressing.

To me, that's the same issue between Fighters and Wizards, or Martials and Casters, depending on how broad you wanna go.

[Reevh]

Having played a rogue, being weak wasn't my concern so much as being just mediocre and boring. In combat, I sneak attacked a lot and that was it - one tactics only, forever. Out of combat, I enjoyed having a good selection of skills, but there wasn't anything to really look forward to or get excited about. I had a number of things I could reliably to and that was once again it, forever. The paladin and wizard, meanwhile, got to do actually exciting things with magic - particularly illusions in the wizard's case. The fact that I could do those boring and reliable things all day long was cold comfort.

Being a battlemaster fighter was a little better, since at least Action Surge and the maneuvers gave me some choices and the ability to just go nuts and erase an enemy in one round if I felt like it and was lucky. Out of combat, though... yeah. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if it wasn't a combat-heavy one-shot and the GM hadn't been generous with short rests.

I think rogue's Cunning Action makes them one of the most interesting martial classes to play, to be honest. You can be constantly dancing in and out of melee, give yourself bursts of speed, or hiding to gain advantage. If you're "sneak attack[ing] a lot" and that's it, I feel like you're missing what makes them fun to play. Also, a rogue can use illusions too.

[Reevh]

I can definitely agree with that. The concern I have is that there isn't really a balance to that. If you want to play something simple, you have to play a martial. If you want to play something complex, you have to play a caster.

I'd argue blaster warlocks are pretty simple too.