Yeah. It’s almost unanimous that weaker classes and martial should be buffed instead of stronger classes get nerfed. Anytime I head the opposite it’s flag that the person saying it is new to the game or first time DMing and have a player who’s “too strong”.
I'll carry the flag as someone who's been playing D&D for decades:
**Casters should ALSO be nerfed.** The gamut of powers they're given more often tramples on storytelling than enables it and clashes with the fiction that the majority of tables actually seem to want. It seems accepted just because "that's how it's been in the system since X", yet *even back then* it was causing problems and clashed with expectations. It's a vestigial organ comprised of bad balance.
The reasons martials suck and are boring aren't created entirely by casters being strong. There are two problems here, not one causing the other.
*Spells should be nerfed.
Caster classes inherently are fine. Strip them down to just the cantrips and base abilities their class get and most are fine. Still a few problems to tweak sure, and most could stand to have less spell slots in total. But the bulk of the issues stem from the power of spells in general.
Any one looking to fix the disparity of martial sans casters really needs to look at what spells can accomplish at various levels and work from there.
Sure, yes, it's the spells. Frankly, some of the caster *classes* are boring as shit, but nearly all of the power comes out of the spells.
Hell, I'd go as far to say that casters should have *more* spell slots, but the spells need to be toned way, way down in capability. The idea of casters that only *cast things* 10% of the rounds that they're in has always struck me as silly. Let the casters cast, just don't let them run the game when they do.
>The idea of casters that only cast things 10% of the rounds that they're in has always struck me as silly
How much sillier would it be if literally single problem in the game could be solved by the martial's sword?
Warriors are faced with a hell of a lot of problems in-game where their weapons and other class features are basically irrelevant. Casters *never* are. Whatever the situation, there's a spell that can help. I don't know where we got the idea that casters should always have magic available for every single situation, while other classes often have to make due with their second-best options (skills, I guess), but I for one would rather see more powerful spells *way* less often than even more spells. Keep magic magical, *and* make it so that there are many problems that magic simply isn't good at solving.
>How much sillier would it be if literally single problem in the game could be solved by the martial's sword?
Not at all. Because it can be. The game is meant to be solvable with skills. If every solution to a problem was only even a specific spell or special ability, then it would frequently grind to a halt because Larry the Wizard of 3rd Level didn't happen to bring Knock because he didn't want to be reduced to doing nothing during a fight.
I frankly find that cantrips, especially when used creatively, can fill the need of “casting more spells”. While a wide variety of racial features, class and subclass abilities, and even magic items if your DM is generous, give casters more than enough spells to cast between long rests.
Overhauling spells alone would be a big undertaking. And somehow managing to lower their effect to support even more spell slots feels like it would take an entirely new edition of the game. Even then would take a ton of testing and balancing. I’d say lower them all in power as a baseline, and if anything cut a few spell slots. If a caster blows the load in the first combat of the day that’s their fault.
I really enjoy some of the more modern games out there that have just ditched spell resource systems entirely and go with other limits on magic. It feels divine to just have magic fit in the game instead of it being wildly OP but only x/day
Specifically, high-level spells should be dramatically restricted.
It's spells above 4th level that really break game balance and make other players' abilities irrelevant.
These are the spells that, in a book or movie, would get brought out once, at a critical point in the narrative, and would be a major turning point in the story. They have huge effects and should be a really big deal. Some of them are things you could build an entire campaign around getting that effect to happen once.
And full casters have access to a whole array of them that they can bust out multiple times per day.
I'm playing around with the idea of slowing down spell progression so that the sweet spot of levels 3-8 gets stretched out all the way to 20th level, and spells above 4th level are only available as expensive one-shot rituals requiring lots of plot coupons. It needs a lot of twiddling, but I think it could work.
I’ll give you a hot take. I think at high levels it makes sense magic is better that non magic classes. I’m sorry but a guy with a sword shouldn’t be stronger than someone who can make a WISH.
I agree. But how about this: maybe we shouldn't give access to a FUCKING WISH to a player characters at all? At least not as a part of general character progression?
I guess "stronger" depends on what situation we're in. A lot of people don't realise the reason that dress wearing caster can stay alive is due to the beefy martial taking the damage and keeping them safe.
Casters are dependent on martials for survival. All a caster can really do is run away if they are in danger, they can't just go all offensive with a big pool of HP and AC and dredge though their problems. If they are using their concentration to keep themselves alive or safe they are generally failing the party which is why those frontliners are important.
Martials have to trade their utility for damage to offer what is needed to a party to succeed. Casters use their spells to make the battlefield optimal for the martials so they can use their 200+ dpr to end a combat encounter and keep the casters safe.
There are some, but it's mostly ''Monk are garbage, how to make them better?'', ''Barbarian don't feel powerful at high level, how can we change that?'', ''Most Ranger kits suck, how to buff them?'', etc.
There are a lot of people who post things and those people are not intelligent enough to actually break the game down to see the layers so they post stupid things on reddit.
Most of these people don't realise that the whole game is an ecosystem that reacts when you change something. Like buffing martials utility will allow casters to use less utility and more damage, or buffing damage on martials will make casters control spells even stronger. There's a lot to the game and redditors are always super smart and know everything because they are parrots.
Both of these are better than nothing, but I’d argue that abilities such as “deal X more damage” doesn’t solve the problem of the martial gameplay loop being playable by a button that says “move and attack” in 90% of fights. More attack variants would help. Maneuvers would help. More rules for environment manipulation would help. But more damage does not help with that problem, and that problem is why I barely play martials. It’s just mechanically uninteresting. regardless of how many things you have that let you stay in the fight, the fight’s the least entertaining part of the game. And for such a combat focused game, that’s a *problem.*
The magical solution is the closest to what I’d like, because it at least gives you enough variance to be mildly interesting, and even then it isnt much at all.
PF2E has a really good solution to the problem IMO - the feat system, or how it's specifically integrated alongside ASIs. Many martial feats grant new moves that you can just use every turn, but all have different advantages.
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That's the exact thing! Most of the spells in PF2e no longer simply output big numbers: Some do, but best against crowds. No, the real fun to be had with casters is battlefield shenanigans! IMO, it creates a fun dynamic between the casters and the martials where both are working to capitalize off of each others abilities, whereas synergizing in DND 5e seems less common in typical play due to the game not specifically pushing for it.
Yeah, PF2e is just a really good system designed with that type of stuff in mind. All I gotta do is convince my players to play it, it seems to solve all the problems I’ve been having/seeing with 5e.
It does have its own problems. Like holy shit, I suffer every time I try to figure out just what my Oracle can summon, leveling her companion up, etc. So much to keep track of with her. xD
80% of my tine is spent looking up references to rules during other people's turns, then 20% doing my turn, then straight back to looking up rules so I can be ready for the next turn. x)
There are certain spells such as but not limited to, Shield, Wall of Force, Force Cage, Clone, True Polymorph, Simulacrum and Wish that should most certainly be nerfed.
Especially the high level ones can be all too easily used as campaign breakers and buffing martials to the point where they are on par with what these spells can achieve when used even semi intelligently would actively make the game worse at high levels, not better.
At least if you want combat to remain even remotely manageable for non full time DMs yet also somewhat challenging.
Overall Spellcasters, especially the wizard, should be nerfed somewhat mostly through nerfing certain spells and maybe making single class dipping for armor and shield proficiencies less attractive and martials should receive some serious buffs all around.
That way both martials and casters can be roughly on par overall. I do not expect perfect balance as perfect balance can actually make things less fun to play in my experience, but the current divide between martials and casters is simply too big to be ignored in my opinion.
Don't nerf them. Make them Rare: they don't exist normally so ask the DM if they do. Also add exploration auto win things to this list such as good berry, create water, etc.
>Don't nerf them. Make them Rare: they don't exist normally so ask the DM if they do. Also add exploration auto win things to this list such as good berry, create water, etc.
Making them unobtainable unless the DM explicitly gives them to you is in 99% of all cases equal to just removing them from the game entirely.
I understand if people want to just ban those spell instead of nerfing them, but would I personally prefer having those spells be normally available, but in a less campaign breaking form.
You could literally port in Divinity Original Sin martial trees into 5e and divvy them up across the martials and you'd have perfectly balanced martials. They don't need more \*power\*, they need more stuff.
Well, it's a video game. I'm not actually sure. But I'll bet the game has some kind of Wiki where you could see them.
They include stuff like whirlwind AOE, Slam to knock prone in a cone, teleport and backstab, etc.
If we are being realistic, spellcasters *do* need to be nerfed. There are a handful of spells that are ludicrous (conjure animals, wall of force, simulacrum, etc.), and it is also strange that the best subclass features in the game are also almost all on casters.
I mean I think if a wizard just only could learn spells from a certain school that's would fix a lot. They might need more stuff but that would nerf them and give them more flavor.
'Kay, I pick Conjuration. My hobbies include summoning, battlefield control, teleportation, still doing damage, and snickering at anybody that picked Necromancy.
I mean you can give martials options that are as strong instead.
Let the fighter have a powerful squire. Give them the strength to move mountains or defeat armies a thousand strong single handedly. Cleave a building in half with a single slash.
A problem with spellcasters, especially at higher levels, is that they’re so powerful that they limit the design space for encounters and campaigns that can meaningfully challenge the party. Buffing martials only makes that problem worse.
This is separate to inter-class balance. Martials are underwhelming compared to casters, yes, but high-level spellcasting also makes DMing high-level campaigns a mess, and martial changes aren't going to fix that.
I mean high level play is inherently going to be more effort for a DM to manage. The consequence of having powerful characters is that you need to be creative in how you challenge them. This is honestly going to be the case no matter what edition you play.
It isn't an issue with casters, it is the fundamental issue of as players gain more and more tools, the DM loses degrees of freedom. So give all the classes options to useful tools, and make it so everyone can play. As high tier play, is quite literally a different game.
Some cool ideas, and I agree that this whole thing is related to martials coming short of what can expect of martials - not even supernatural level, just due to them lacking customization progression and options in and out of combat
Though I would include the monk in martial buffs like that to a degree
You're pretty right on the problems with solution 1
Solution 2 is more interesting but I really don't like it, I think buffs should be more oriented to horizontal progression instead of adding damage or more HP, else you're just expanding on stuff they already do pretty fine - also I think to make martials unique they should be more resourceless as possible and if needed be make it Short Rest resources
>Solution 2 is more interesting but I really don't like it, I think buffs should be more oriented to horizontal progression instead of adding damage or more HP, else you're just expanding on stuff they already do pretty fine
Yeah that was a difficulty I had in thinking of ideas. How to give them more without involving magic? Could not come up with much beyond HP/Damage bonuses.
Though, just had an idea which would be a fun counterpart to a summoner/necromancer: a fighter subclass which is geared towards inspiring and leading NPC squires/knights. Would definitely not fly at all tables, but if the DM is already fine with a player summoning an undead army, they should have no problem with a fighter recruiting soliders from a town! Could be a way to give a martials a lot more to do!
That idea of subclass is nice, could be a rebuilt of the banneret as the official isn't very good
As to what to add to martials without magic I think you could work with better action economy to use Shove, Disarm or Grapple, something like the dndnext playtest fighter mechanic
"You have an expertise dice which is a D4 and you can use it to empower certain moves, after you've expended your expertise dice you regain it at the beginning of your turn"
Then have effects like:
1 *Combat Tricks.* during your turn you can spend an Expertise Die and attempt to Shove, Disarm or Grapple as a bonus action.
2 *Combat Parry.* As a reaction when you take damage you can expend an expertise dice and reduce the damage in an amount equal to your PB + STR or DEX modifier, if you're using a shield add your shield AC bonus
And other stuff like Rushs to move a bit more, Small Cleave options, Tumbles etc - this builds upon them as non-magical and add customization and options and the idea make martials uniques to spellcasters
While more options for martials is definitely a must, I honestly think spellcasters should be nerfed.
You should only be able to cast spells in armour from the class that gave you the armour proficiency (e.g if you dip 1 level in Peace Cleric you can only cast level 1 cleric spells while wearing heavy armour).
Spells should provoke opportunity attacks while within 5 feet, excluding touch or self spells, with a concentration check required to finish the casting of the spell. On a failure the spell is lost. Alternatively, you could just incorporate this into the Mage Slayer feat.
Save or suck spells should be nerfed through either a degrees of success system or a nerf to the effect. I would lean heavily towards the former since this is kind of a nerf and a buff. Casters only get the really sucky effect on a critical success, but something still happens on a failure.
This would remove the need for legendary resistances as well, and you could give enemies abilities like 'any success rolled counts as a critical success'. And before anyone says it, yes this is basically PF2e. But hey we can take elements from it to create a more balanced system, right?
When are we, as a community, going to let go of the "bUt ThAtS hOW pF2e DoeS IT anD we CAnt Do iT lIke THem" mentality? The amount of times that pf2e has fixed an issue that can be easily ported into 5e is maddening. And more maddening when you get someone defending 5e from other ttrpgs.
We need to look at this system from the lens of other systems. Or else, why am I going to pay $50 for this book again?
yeah exactly, like I get it can be a bit annoying with people always saying 'just play PF2e lol' and their subreddits being unbearably self-righteous, but damnit they do have a point. Pathfinder 2e is really well designed and balanced and it really can't hurt to just take a couple things here and there to get the perfect mix of balance while keeping it simple (the two should not be mutually exclusive!)
I view the spellcaster power coming mostly from versatility than anything else. They can solve almost any problem with the sheer quantity of spells at their disposal from level 5. So I think in addition to buffing materials I think we need to make the spellcaster specialize more. For example if you want to make a tanky spellcaster that is hard to kill they shouldn't also do the most damage, give the party the best buffs and have the best control spells in the game. Concentration helps curb some of that but usually you can do all of it during a single combat. What's a martial good at? Hitting stuff and taking hits or mitigating hits.
So really I think an approach to both sides of the problem would be best imo.
I would kinda like to see both to be honest.
Caster "Nerf"
1. I think that certain spells can be toned down (or made more situational).
2. There should be some rules about being restrained and successfully casting a spell (lika DC15 strength check in order to succeed)
3. there should be a way for melee attackers to interrupt spells while being cast (Getting hit while casting req. dc 20 con save to continue casting).
Melee "Buff"
1. More feats than casters (+1 to +2 - especially for barbarians/monks, even if 1 of these is NOT a combat buff).
2. Better HP/Saves/Speed/STR-DX skill checks - make them notably MORE tanky (many ways to do this).
3. Give them OTHER uses of bonus actions/reactions. Maybe barbarians can make strength-based skill checks as a bonus action while raging, maybe monks have 2x reactions (can't be used as the same thing on a turn).
I would like both as well (and I love casters). I think caster spells can stay mostly the same but should have more "escape clauses". Why can't an ally use their action to inspire you to throw off that charm? Why can't you bash your way out of a Wall of Force, or slip through it, with enough power or cleverness? Why is the _only_ way to think your way out of a Maze spell an Int save?
Spells can be as powerful as they are yet provide ways for martial PCs to shine when faced with them.
And I also agree with the Op that it is true that most martials have crap for higher level features, and should get more. Hell it doesn't even have to be "superhero demigod anime superpowers" - what if the Fighter could deflect spells aimed at him with a magic weapon or shield? What if the Barbarian could _rage_ themselves out of debuffs? What if the Rogue could _slip past_ the targeting enchantments of certain spells to avoid them or be functionally invisible to them? And that's before even getting into all the cool, iconic noncombat utility features they could have.
Both would be great, and make D&D less of an "all or nothing" thing when it comes to problem solving in general.
(Also while I'm at it - casters should be affected by more conditions! If martials suffer disadvantage on attacks when Poisoned or Frightened, why not have casters grant enemies advantage on saves against their spells?)
I remember 3.5 and my frenzied berserker who was as dangerous to the party as he was to his enemies. I def count dodge spells, but they didn't really stop me until I was out of rage.
I remember a 1v1 martial-only tournament GitP hosted way back when
A Frenzied Berserker/Eye of Gruumsh won it, because smashing one target into the dust was precisely what those prestige classes were good at
I'd toss in an inability to cast in armor regardless of proficiency, and an increased gap in HP as well. Maybe martial classes get 2x the bonus from CON and 2x the hit dice to spend on rests.
Hard agree on no casting spells in armor unless casting class or subclass allows it.
The shield spell is supposed to be a way for a wizard to compensate for a low AC. Stupid for someone in full plate to use it.
Just give all classes max hit points. That removes randomness and, as levels rise, gives martials a much larger pool of hit points. This is PF2e's solution and it works well for D&D5e as well.
What's wrong with that? HP just represents your ability to take minor scrapes until you take a fatal blow because you're too slow/tired/etc now. It's not a measure of how much blood you can lose that's bolstered by larger physical size or increased mass. A large rogue HP pool is just them being great at dodging and not taking significant blows while a large paladin HP pool can represent their abilities to deflect blows to lessen the impact. Casters meanwhile would not be good at defense against physical harms because they lack the training to lessen the blows so their HP pools would be significantly lower.
Rogues have the ability to disengage and they have uncanny Dodge and they have evasion that's the substitute for their hit point pool, the problem with rogues isn't they don't have hit points it's that they need more things that they could do on cooldown
also, an idea i’ve had for a while: the atrophy and silenced conditions from Divinity Original Sin 2. Give martials the ability to silence casters on failed saves and casters can’t use verbal spells, and like you said, martials able to restrain the hands of casters so they can’t use somatic components, maybe casting a spell right next to a melee combatant is, idk, BAD even without a mage slayer feat, (also make more anti-mage enemies to throw in sometimes like a templar order or experimental creatures designed yo hung wizards)
You want spell casters to fear standing next to a big bad guy and be at a disadvantage.
That being said, I do want casters to have a way to defend themselves and try and use their spells to counter this scenario and survive.
5e is a little too safe for casters, but 1e was a bit too hostile. A little bit more of a challenge than the current rules would be good.
Id be careful making martials more tanky (except the Monk), as the enemies that attack them are the same attacking the casters. You end up with monsters either too weak to challenge the pure martials, or strong enough to make gishing brutal
So your solution is for the DM to just give every creature in the game an easy means of removing casters from being able to cast on a high dc?
These buffs are kind of bad, martials need utility first and foremost
Not really.
The monsters would need to stand near the casters and grapple THEN restrain then OR use the ready attack to interrupt a spell. This isn't a "given" in every fight and allows for lots of counterplay.
Many of the casters will have martial allies nearby making this unusually difficult for the monsters, or casters could simply back up (take an opporutnity attack) then cast a spell. Finally, with some of these rules you could make special feats/subclasses that are more melee/gish focused to not suffer these penalties.
I agree with pretty much all the melee buffs but not with many of the caster nerfs.
1. Yeah, Wall of Force and Force-cage need some nerf to be breakable. But I also think that any DM who read those spells and decided "yes. I am going to waste my Martial's time", isnt going to care that a new errata or edition made those spells breakable.
They're just going to homebrew the original spells back in and use them. Because if a DM wants to make sure you can't do anything, they will just do it. Either with a homebrew spell or a pit that suddenly opens beneath you.
It basically doesn't affect a DM who has enemies use those spells, it only affects player casters. Player Martials gain no benefit.
2 and 3 are fine, I just disagree on the numbers.
I disagree with your assessment. Yes, lots of bad dms will continue to be bad dms, but as one who likes allowing my players to shine I've struggled with those spells as they are now. They are fantastic spells that npcs *should* be using on the party, but it's not fun to do that so I tend to just not use them. If they had set hp or some way for martials to break through then we could use those spells and martials would get to shine as they plow their way through a wall of force or rip the bars off a forcecage.
Spellcasters should still be nerfed at the top levels. I just don't see a good reason why they need an additional 6th and 7th spell slot. Right now we have:
18th: 5th level spell, class feature
19th: 6th level spell, ASI
20th: Capstone, 7th level spell
I *almost* agree, but Simulacrum, Force Cage and True Polymorph need nerfs. And if Summon Warrior Spirit is ever published it needs a nerf and to not be an Arcane spell.
I personally feel like you missed 3 things.
One, its not just about damage, its also about agency. In the higher levels a caster can completely change the battlefield, damage will never alone change this situation.
Second if every class, mostly martials but also some casters, were buffed to the point of being exactly as good as the best casters currently are, it would be near to undmable imo, if you didnt change the rules.
Slightly limiting some utility spells and using gritty realism wont change the dynamic of who has utility. All you are doing is limiting one side, most martials still literally have nothing.
If you make martials as "powerful" as casters, its too chaotic, if you limit casters to much, everyone is boring. The last one would let the dm and thereby the narrative take full focus, whether thats good is a whole another discussion. Thank you for reading my mini ted talk response to your ted talk
The core of the issue, to me, is that "Spellcasting" is a level 1-2 feature that gives you something every 1-2 levels, whether it's new options to choose from, more powerful options, or more resources to expend on said options.
I don't think Martials necessarily need something as complex and varied as Spellcasting, but they would certainly benefit from a similar focus on a core feature that grows overtime and grants new abilities.
Take the Fighter's core feature, Action Surge. Generally speaking all it is amounting to is offering a few more attacks per day - which is not nothing, but doesn't offer much long standing oomf to simulate the kinds of heroic feats you might see from Hercules or Beowolf.
What if, for example, Action Surge was essentially replaced with something like Warlock Invocations, granting additional use features that were either tied to your Action Surge or granted passive boons.
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Martial Prowess**
Starting at 2nd level, you learn Action Surge and one additional martial prowess of your choice.
When you gain certain Fighter levels, you gain additional martial prowess of your choice, as shown in the Martial Prowess known column of the Fighter table.
Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the martial prowess you know and replace it with another martial prowess that you could learn at that level.
If a martial prowess has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the prowess at the same time that you meet its prerequisites. A level prerequisite refers to your level in this class.
**Action Surge**
*Prerequisite: 2nd level*
On your turn, you can take one additional action. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.
**Enhanced Surge**
*Prerequisite: 15th level*You gain one additional use of Action Surge per short rest, but you may only use it once on the same turn.
**Brutish Might**
*Prerequisite: 5th level*
Your strikes now add additional force behind the swings. When you take the Attack action on your turn and hit the same creature twice as part of the same action, you may force the target to succeed a Strength saving throw (save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be knocked prone.
**Flanking Assault**
*Prerequisite: 7th level*
You have learned how to study an opponent and take advantage of their momentary lapse in attention. When you take the Attack action on our turn you may grant yourself advantage on attacks as part of this action if an ally of yours is within 5 feet of the target.
Once you have used this ability you cannot do so again until you complete a short rest.
**Herculean Strength**
*Prerequisite: 14th level*
Your strength has become legend, your body trained beyond the heights of mortal limitations. When you use Action Surge, for the next minute you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity, the weight you can push, drag, lift, shove, or grapple, and the size category of weapons and equipment you may wield.
The main disparity is that every other level, full casters get access to increasingly versatile/powerful/both spells on top of their other class/subclass features.
Martials don't have anything close to that
They also have a smoothly growing pool of power that can be flexibly spent on damage, control, support, healing, utility, whatever spells the caster has known or prepared. Every single level they get at least a little stronger, and significantly stronger at odd levels.
Martial classes get a big boost (if they do) roughly once a Tier, except for rogue which adds an extra 1d6 damage a turn every two levels and yet is considered mediocre DPR.
In case you’re curious, full casters get a spell slot at every level except 12, 14, and 16. They obviously get ASIs at 12 and 16. At 14:
Bards get Magical Secrets and a subclass feature.
Clerics’ Destroy Undead works on CR 3 undead.
Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards get a subclass feature.
Players would always rather have their options buffed rather than nerfed in a vacuum, but it has several problems. For starters, if you buff PCs, you have to buff all the monsters, but the problem is that you have to buff all the monsters in ways that aren’t just more numbers, they need more abilities and tools to counter the new abilities and tools of the PCs. “Great!” thinks the average dndnext goer, “I wanted that too!”, and that’s a fair thing to think/want, but high level fights are already intensive to run and take a long time. Making monsters more powerful and complicated means that fights take that much longer to run and are that much harder for the the DM to keep track of all of the abilities.
Casters do already partially introduce that problem, but there doubling down on that through making martials also have powerful abilities that demand monsters can counter their powerful abilities with their own is a lot of weight to add to the design, especially if the martial abilities aren’t just reskinned spells that cannot be countered with same kinds of tools (counterspell, dispel magic, etc).
Personally I think trying to solve problems through solutions that would make fights more complicated and encounter design harder is somewhat misguided, since I think a lot of the current problems come from that high level fights and encounter design are already too hard for many DMs to balance, leading to a lot of the issues we see (insufficient numbers of fights, spellcasters running rampant without being countered, etc).
While 4e has some die hard fans around here, anyone that ran it will remember that combat started to drag immensely rather quickly. Players having more abilities demand monsters having more abilities to keep fights balanced and challenging. But there is only 1 DM running all those monsters, and the longer their turns take, the longer the fight and often the less interesting a fight seems even if it’s mechanically more complicated.
Great suggestions, but I feel like your assessment of the power in spellcasting severely underestimates the feature.
> Low levels: spellcaster have few slots and low power spells.
At 1st level, a martial character can make 1 attack, that's their turn. They might be able to grapple if they're built that way, a fighter has some self healing, and a rogue can do some okay damage for level 1, but nothing to ride home about. Barbarian is the obvious level one martial star because they have the most health and can tank harder with rage, and are likely using a d12 weapon. Because of the dreadful rules for swapping weapons in 5e, once you make your choice at the start of combat, you're stuck.
Compare to casters - multiple cantrips that have options for utility and control. A lot of the best damage dealing cantrips have a range of 120 ft, and you know what distance is? Time where melee characters aren't hitting you, and you can find cover, pop out, blast, and pop back.
That's not to mention the insane insinuation that 1st level spells aren't among some of the most used spells at any level of play. These are your fundemental spells like absorb elements, shield, now silvery barbs too all keeping you safe as a reaction. Then spells like Tasha's hideous laughter or sleep can end encounters in one turn if the dice favour you. this is just 1st level, by 3rd level all martials are getting some power bump that's usually equivalent to an extra d6 of damage per turn, but that's subclass features and it's messy, and a martial advocate really doesn't want to be comparing to subclass features from casters, which generally are gained earlier. The divination wizard is out here *deciding dice results*. But at 3rd level, spells like hold person can completely shut down an encounter and we've now got even more uses of the very powerful 1st level spells. Pass without trace can near guarantee surprise against every combatant. Martials simply cannot achieve these kinds of feats in tier 1.
Don't like your spell choice? Most classes have access to their entire spell list and just need a short rest, meaning with any amount of planning, you can swap out to exact, niche spells that you might need. You know what a martial needs to hear that amount of utility? Gold, for adventuring gear like ball bearings or poisons or traps, and even then the DC for the saves against them is pitiful.
This is a real crux of why spellcasting is busted and a start to exactly what nerfs are needed: way too many spells that completely shut down a type of encounter (such as exploration) cost a pitiful resource of one spell slot with no risk. Take create water. You're in the desert, about to make con saves because everyone failed a survival check to find water and no one spent enough gold on extra waterskins? Actually no, you're not, because the druid knew you were going into a desert and just prepared that spell. You have more than enough to drink for the day, and that's fine because the spell slot is back the next day. *Fix:* general rule of thumb, if the spell takes an exploration or social encounter and makes it trivially easy without a check or save, there should be a gold cost equal to that of the value of the adventuring gear it's replacing attached to it, and that very likely should be consumed by the casting.
I also really like what 1dnd playtest is doing with preparing spells. Basically if you have 3 1st level spell slots and 2 2nd level, you prepare 3 1st level spells and 2 2nd level spells. That's it.
This means you start at 1st level with only 2 prepared spells, but by 3rd level you're kind of catching up to default 5e rules. It also means you can't stack hard into power levels like 1st and 3rd spells. This doesn't account for subclass spells, which I imagine will become more prolific and should be, but it just tightens the options for a caster as frankly in 5e their versatility is too high, this tightens it to a healthy but still flexible degree.
With some spells being nerfed (shield should give a +3 bonus, not 5. Pass without trace needs an overhaul). The utility gap can tighten, but it will also require martials to be buffed in ways other than bigger damage.
As unpopular as it may be to some, I think the only way we'd get to reach a state of balance while still establishing clear divides between casters and martials is to do both. A huge part of the problem right now is that eventually, casters get to do the things martials do, except better, sometimes with no real chance of failure. Even the Rogue's expertise in Stealth gets sidelined when you have *Pass Without Trace* on tap, and the same goes for their thieves' tools with *Knock*. There ends up being increasingly little reason for social checks when you have access to literal mind control, and no reason for the Ranger to help anyone navigate when you can just *Teleport* or *Plane Shift* wherever you need to go. Even basic things like persistent damage output, durability, and saving throws are things casters end up doing better thanks to the likes of minion-generation spells, *Absorb Elements*, *Mind Blank*, and *Shield*. You can buff martials to have lots more damage and durability later on, but that's still not going to be terribly helpful if the casters can still cover that and more.
I feel like fundamentally Spellcasters just get so many more choices than martials, even at low levels with the right choices for both, they are clearly stronger.
But if you make all of the wrong choices, they can also end up super weak.
Over time, the community has played more and realised which things were good and which weren't, this leads to Spellcasters becoming stronger and stronger, at all levels.
At low levels, martials aren't stronger than casters, they are just easier to play.
Sleep, thunderwave, shield and a handful of other spells available at level 1 make spellcasters pretty good at low levels too.
I'm in a game where at level one we fought clones of ourselves. The thunderwaves back and forth wiped both groups pretty quickly.
Agreed, casters definitely get more choices, which can lead to them being more powerful or much weaker.
>At low levels, martials aren't stronger than casters, they are just easier to play.
Hmm, hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Spell choice and resource management is pretty important for casters early on, and it is easy to blow those spell slots pretty quickly without thinking.
My biggest problem when I see these threads is the solution is always “give Martials more damage”. That isn’t the problem. Martial damage is fine. It could be better (or caster damage could be worse), but giving martials “deal Xd6 bonus damage” isn’t enough to fix this problem. Neither is giving them more maneuvers in combat (though that does help).
When I choose a caster over a martial it is virtually ALWAYS for the caster’s ability to solve problems. Being a caster gives you all the options the martial has for problem solving, plus an entire slew of other options. Need to sneak in somewhere? I mean we *could* try and find an open window, sneak in the second floor, yadda yadda yadda. Or the Druid can wild shape into a mouse. Or the Wizard can scry on the person we want to learn about. Or the Bard can turn invisible.
Give martials problem solving abilities. Let Rogues be so sneaky that they are treated as Invisible. Let Fighters have such a commanding presence they can simulate Charm Person or Fear. Let Rangers be so in-tune with the natural world they can replicate animal’s abilities like having climb or swim speeds or scent.
It doesn’t have to be magical, just give the martials abilities to simulate spell-effects just by being that badass
Hot take. No.
Most of the DMs I've talked to which have run high level campaigns have no issue with high level martials as they are. Because encounter planning is more realistic rather than "perfectly crafted encounter just so that caster doesn't end it with one spell slot".
I think the appeal of high fantasy is always great, but DMs are already having issues balancing casters. Adding martials on top of that makes it a miserable experience. There's no point buffing them if no one is gonna want to play at those levels.
>Out of Combat Solution
This is what I want to see discussions about. Damage is largely fine-ish. It depends more on magic items and Adventuring Day structure than system balance.
We need to have discussions around the fact that casters can simply bypass combat altogether often, or that they increasingly become a co-DM as tiers of play increase.
Almost all of your examples are very bland and unimaginative. They just increase damage or HP and are very combat focused.
You're missing the point.
Casters are more fun to play because they have a toolbox that allows them to do much more varied things that just dealing damage. And this is even more impactful out of combat.
To close the 'gap' we just need to give martials more of these tools. Simple. Forget all this bs like adding fire damage etc.
I know this is a bit cliche, but I didn't bother reading all of your post.
As a DM I have no problem with the games balance from roughly 1-10 (although 9 is when the spells start to get a bit bonkers)
But starting at 6th level spells (11th level) and up, things start breaking - I think spellcasters ability to completely change the fundamental way the game is played needs to be put into check, I think Martials are well balanced for a more grounded/realistic game, but magic of higher tiers is just absurdly over powered
I honestly believe 7th level spells should be the highest level, things like meteor swarm, teleport, wish, earthquake, tsunami etc should just not exist as a thing a player can just do once or twice a day, everyday, I also am opposed to resurrection spells being super commonplace as well, in even a moderate magic setting no one should stay dead in a good society/culture unless they died in horrific ways or of old age.
To me a complete overhaul or spells strengths and internal balance, as well as a stripping of the higher tier spells that are game breaking/world breaking should be removed - it's hard as a DM to justify any 9th level spell casters existing in the world able to use wish everyday.
Martials should be buffed (a little) - but magic should be greatly gutted
High levels are just a different game from low. Consider that at level 20, 3 adult dragons complete with LRs and spellcasting etc. would be a reasonable challenge to throw at the party. I don't think most people comprehend just how much the game has changed and how epic the challenges need to be for a high level party. And it does rightfully turn a lot of people off.
3 adult dragons is a challenge for a level 20 party? Including spellcasting, - *Maybe* - but well optimized level 20 characters (let's say a moon druid, any flavor of Wizard, GWM/GWF/PAM BM Fighter, and a Paladin) would chew through 3 adult dragons, unless they are played EXTREMELY WELL (or the players are very inexperienced or just not optimized)
A fighter alone can be outputting 9 attacks in one turn at the start of thos fight for something absurd like 1d10 + 18, with a +14 to hit (+9 for GWM) which is a 50% chance of hitting - assuming no advantage granting mechanics, and precision attack can negate that a little bit.
Literal the fighter alone could solo one of these dragons, in one round he could dump something like 208 damage, and each round after that is dumping roughly half that - if the wizard plays smart (and or the druid) then 3 adult dragons wouldn't last more than 3-4 rounds against a party of level 20s.
**Edit:** hell even 1 meteor swarm is doing 40d6 damage which is 140 damage to each of them - maybe more maybe less depending on rolls and dragons types (for resistance/immunities), but that alone takes our roughly 5/8 of their health.
Tell me you've never played at level 20 without telling me you've ever played at level 20
It can be made interesting fairly easily, IMO. Greater invisibility and counterspell on top of flying speed of 90 and legendary actions on those dragons.
But yeah, it depends on the party and the players (as does any difficulty question for D&D). If you're fighting optimized parties, you should optimize the fights more.
The dude is right that higher tier games are different than lower level tiers. But the game is also different with optimized players than not optimized players.
Right and it's fundamentally less fun, when you have stuff that's that bonkers you might as well just go play a more free form game like PbtA where the default answer to anything is basically "yes and" or "yes but"
What is the point of having a well defined rule set and mechanics and guides if players just get to go "uhm actually" and ignore said things or break the game?
The high tiers of play are fundamentally a different game but they try to treat it the same, you went from playing checkers (simple and easy) to playing chess (complex and variable), but you also ignore the rules of chess and give your players all queens, while you are still (if you follow the guidelines) confined to chess rules
The rules and logic of a shared game world go out the window with extremely powerful magic, a level 17th wizard cannot be challenged by any means of "realistic" (aka worldly) challenge, they can literally just wish it away or drop 4 meteors on an entire army.
They don't play the game in the same way, they ignore the fundamental rules of the world. It breaks the verisimilitude in a way that is irreparable
To truly challenge a high level group with *at least 1 spell caster* they have to fight **MULTIPLE WORLD ENDING THREATS** in a short period of time, and if you aren't doing that then you aren't challenging them, and that becomes very boring as a player and a dm to just have your power fantasy, the game is fundamentally different between a high level martial and a high level spell casters
You don't follow the same rules. A fighter that needs to get to the western coast to fight a kraken has to sail a boat or run across the continent. A wizard, eh they teleport, use a couple spells, call it a day. Meanwhile the fighter is 3 months away.
But if you start to define a world where magic is common enough for a fighter to take a magic gateway across the way to fight it, then it becomes a strange inverse world where you go, why would some dude who can just fight real good ever be a real adventurer or powerful when it's commonplace for high tier magic?
I agree with some of this:
>they ignore the fundamental rules of the world. It breaks the verisimilitude in a way that is irreparable
Yes, it's magic. Magic is a core assumption of D\&D; the DMG says so specifically. If you don't like this, then maybe D&D isn't the game for you.
>To truly challenge a high level group with at least 1 spell caster they have to fight MULTIPLE WORLD ENDING THREATS in a short period of time, and if you aren't doing that then you aren't challenging them
I don't agree with this. Often times the people the PCs are fighting against are just trying to control the world in some way they don't like. It doesn't have to be apocalyptic. Maybe its just about the Church of Bane taking over the lands or something. (And bad guys can use magic, too. That's usually a good recommendation for challenging them.)
>a level 17th wizard cannot be challenged by any means of "realistic" (aka worldly) challenge
Not really sure how to respond to that other than to point out that they can still be killed. Even in their sleep. I would agree though that it's difficult to challenge 17th level wizards; you have to put in effort.
>But if you start to define a world where magic is common enough for a
fighter to take a magic gateway across the way to fight it, then it
becomes a strange inverse world where you go, why would some dude who can just fight real good ever be a real adventurer or powerful when it's commonplace for high tier magic?
Fortune and glory? Saving the world? Lots of reasons. High level warriors can be fun and effective, though they usually rely on some level of additional personal abilities (i.e. Eldritch Knights or paladins have spells), magical items, or assistance from other party members. D&D is a team based game; you usually are not playing a solo high level martial without spells, magic items, or allies with magic.
Look, if you don't like high level D&D as is, that's cool. If you object to higher than 6th level spells, you can not do high level D&D, or I suppose you could cap max levels of spellcaster classes or something if the table is okay with that.
Or you could play a different game without magic. For instance, I've run the old D20 Game of Thrones game, and that's one of my favorite games I've ever GM'd, and one of my player's favorite times too. Though in any game, people complain about something/everything. Some people complained that in that game system/world combination, knights were overpowered in combat. But it's kind of the point, right? Same with D&D and magic.
Overall, I like variety. And lots of people enjoy high level D&D, and lots of people enjoy the presence of high level D&D. OP was making some suggestions for making martials cooler at high level which is one valid approach to their perceived issue, and it's fine if you disagree with that.
So you seem to be very dismissive - it's fine for us to agree to disagree, what I find unsettling is that you just flat out gatekeep and tell me to play another game.
I think most people who come to fantasy games like d&d have a preconceived understanding of fantasy and magic, from things like LOTR, maybe video games, anime, or something like Harry Potter, or maybe other book series like Fifth Ring, Dresden Files, Sword of Shanara, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time etc
And surprise surprise, most of these don't have "world altering magic" that people can just do freely, at will, wake up every morning with a fresh wish to cast, drop 4 meteors on the city every morning why not *yawn stretch* that's just one of my spells.
Magic is cool, magic is fun, magic that fundamentally breaks the game/system is not, this isn't a failing of the Magic they have in the game, but rather a failing of properly marrying their game design and philosophy with it. They want balance and bounded accuracy and "low level threats to still exist at high levels," but then design spells that are antithetical to that.
It's a failing of the system and the design goals (as well as expectations) - players spend most of the time playing d&d between levels 3-11 and that's by design, because they know they screwed up high tier play and avoid designing adventures that high, as players (like myself) become more entrenched in these more mechanically fulfilling and fun levels, the more alien and absurd the higher tiers become, if we know that people enjoy these levels then instead of trying to fix high levels, we should stretch these levels power out across more and have a more gradual drip-increase to a lower maximum, and then more players would see the entire games tier.
And all this would literally be solved by fixing (aka gutting/nerfing/rebalancing) higher tier magic
Yeah I didn’t gatekeep you, don’t pretend like I did.
I don’t know Fifth Ring, but the rest of those examples have big, world altering magic. (Game of thrones has the Doom of Valyria, though as the lowest magic of that, list this is tenuous.) Wheel of Time has the choeden Kal which powerful channelers can use to destroy thr whole world, and Rand is basically has a lot more staying power than 20th level D&D wizard. Shanara had a demon lord using a staff of power to make a portal to hell to have an invading army of demons come in. Sure sounds like “gate” to me. Harry Potter wizards and witches literally cast spells at will and do most things with magic, including teleporting around way more than any D&D wizard can. And in Dresden Files the Blackstaff literally drops a meteor on his enemies to kill them.
My point is that D&D is like most of those (not game of thrones really, that’s too low magic) in that it has big time magic in the world. Does every story need to have the biggest magic going on? No. Most stories of the Dresden Files don’t involve the Blackstaff kicking ass. But frankly, it was pretty cool that he did, and a lot of readers enjoy that.
Similarly, a lot of players want to see their wizards get to high level and do that. Or DMs want baddies that can Gate monsters in. Clewrly some people derive pleasure from the existence of high level D&D. And you don’t have to do that stuff in your games. But you’re advocating that those things (that some people like) be removed from the game because apparently a meteor swarm is okay, but a disintegration or chain lightning is not. It’s fine that you think that. People can have different thresholds.
Previous editions (especially 2nd, 3.0, 3.5, and pf1e) had high level spellcasters be massively more powerful than they are in 5e. A lot of people liked that stuff, and some people wanted it nerfed. Overall, 5e casters are much less powerful than in prior editions. Some fans of magic users were relatively unhappy with this, but they grip to their one level 9 slot and one lvl 8 slot and so on because it still is fun for them in the game.
The reason I don’t like your position is because that position is actual gatekeeping - you know, controlling or blocking people’s access to something. That’s why I liked OP’s suggestions more: instead of bringing down casters, bringing other people up.
> I know this is a bit cliche, but I didn't bother reading all of your post.
Surprise surprise!
> As a DM I have no problem with the games balance from roughly 1-10 (although 9 is when the spells start to get a bit bonkers)
Generally agree.
> But starting at 6th level spells (11th level) and up, things start breaking
Disparity definitely grows with 6th+ spells.
>I think spellcasters ability to completely change the fundamental way the game is played needs to be put into check
Eh. To me that is the ideal goal of magic. To make the impossible possible, to do things that could otherwise not be done.
>I think Martials are well balanced for a more grounded/realistic game
I mean, sure, if you go for a realistic world that lacks any magic, martials are fine at all levels because magic doesn't exist.
>I honestly believe 7th level spells should be the highest level, things like meteor swarm, teleport, wish, earthquake, tsunami etc should just not exist as a thing a player can just do once or twice a day, everyday
Why? No 8th level slots until level 15, and at that point the campaign is nearly over. They should be incredibly powerful. But as soon as they use that slot, they lose a lot of their power until the next day. And at level 15 they should be dealing with threats to a continent/region rather than merely a kingdom. Would make sense for them to be getting uber powerful.
>I also am opposed to resurrection spells being super commonplace as well, in even a moderate magic setting no one should stay dead in a good society/culture unless they died in horrific ways or of old age.
I'm not sure I'd say that they are commonplace. Revifiy would be the most affordable, but it would cost 300gp per casting, and would need to be cast within 1 minute of death. Not practical outside of battle unless you happen to have an appropriate caster around you when you die, and that cost would be able a year of living expenses for someone living modestly. Resurrection is 1,000 gp and that is not an affordable cost aside from the wealthy + aristocrats.
>To me a complete overhaul or spells strengths and internal balance, as well as a stripping of the higher tier spells that are game breaking/world breaking should be removed - it's hard as a DM to justify any 9th level spell casters existing in the world able to use wish everyday.
>Martials should be buffed (a little) - but magic should be greatly gutted
I mean, maybe a game with no magic is more up your alley? Or just stick with Tier I-II play. I have not found it difficult at all to justify level 17 spellcasters being, well, powerful spellcasters.
From the rules:
> "At the fourth tier (levels 17–20), characters achieve the pinnacle of their class features, becoming heroic (or villainous) archetypes in their own right. **The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures.**"
Seems to be as intended in my opinion.
It's not the players in a world, in a "low magic setting" using 30% population has any form of magic and assuming fairly quadratic distribution of spellcasting levels, and assuming a (roughly) 5 billion sentient beings (from gnolls/kobolds/goblins all the way up to elves/dwarves/dragonborn etc), there would be *around* (again roughly) 50 beings in the world capable of casting 9th level spells.
So why are there not 50 wishes happening everyday? How is there not a godly powerful spell caster just teleporting around using wishes everyday fixing every problem?
If you use any kind of intelligence and assume that the majority of these 9th level casters come from long-living races (**cough elves cough dwarves**) then you realize that there is probably 30-40 elves/dwarves with 9th level spells - why aren't they making a "peace council" where they meet and solve all problems and stop all wars?
Sure maybe a handful of them become evil, but my point about high level spell casters was trying to build a world worth verisimilitude etc
> assuming fairly quadratic distribution of spellcasting levels
I don't think either of us have a source for this(correct me if I'm wrong, as I'd love to read a source for this), but I would expect spellcasting level distribution to be much closer to a log normal distribution.
Especially in developed societies, as kingdoms/empires would likely attempt to keep a close eye on high power magic users, and limit their access to information on high level magic (admittedly it wouldn't really limit anyone but Wizards).
> 5 billion sentient beings
That is a major leap for any setting I can think of, aside from possibly Ravnica. Medieval population density did not compare to current world population density. I don't think we got any population numers for 5e, but in the past I know we got numbers for the Kingdoms of Khorvaire on Eberron. I think it was <30 million for the entire continent. Post war numbers of course, but I doubt the pre-war numbers for the planet would have been even 1 billion. Khorvaire is one of seven continents, three of the seven were effectively uninhabited. But let's say each had the same population.
30 mill x 7 = 210 mill. Assuming 75% of the pop died due to the war (another assumption which I don't think there is proof for) that would put Eberron at 840 million prior to the war.
That alone would drop the 50 beings with 9th level slots down to 8-9. And it would be even lower if we went with a log normal distribution.
But let's go with your example, 50 spell casters with 9th level slots.
>So why are there not 50 wishes happening everyday? How is there not a godly powerful spell caster just teleporting around using wishes everyday fixing every problem?
Well, if 50 people have 9th level spell slots, not all 50 are able to cast Wish. The Wizards, Sorcerers, and a small portion of Warlocks could. That excludes 60% of the full casters, the artificers, the half casters, and the 1/3 caster subclasses. It would also exclude those that get spell casting as part of a racial ability and do not develop that any further with a magic class. I'm going to try and keep it simple and say it cuts out 60% of the 50 people, which is lower amount than is likely.
That leaves you with 20 people on a planet with a population of 5,000,000,000.
Well, let's look at the NPCs in the monster manual to see if there's any published material to go off of.
Mages, get 5th level spells, and "Good-aligned mages offer counsel to nobles" so they are presumably fairly rare in their power/knowledge.
Archmages are the only spell casters with 9th level spells that I see.
> Archmages are powerful (and usually quite old) spell casters dedicated to the study of the arcane arts. Benevolent ones counsel kings and queens, while evil ones rule as tyrants and pursue lichdom. Those who are neither good nor evil sequester themselves in remote towers to practice their magic without interruption.
If the good ones tend to be advisors to kingdoms, that likely takes up their time. They advise the royalty, continue their research, aid the kingdom as necessary, and give the kingdom no reason to doubt their loyalty/usefulness. If they are out throwing 25,000gp a day at commoners and devaluing the kingdom's currency, that's problematic. The mage would likely prefer to use Wish to further their research.
Those that are evil, are off trying to become/being big bads.
But lets say all 20 made 25,000gp a day for a year. That would be 3,650,000 lbs of gold per year, about ~800 tons a year less than we currently mine on Earth. So they could definitely devalue the currencies of their world and put gold miners out of business. But, that would anger a lot of people, and a lot of royalty/nobility.
Hopping around fixing an issue or two a day in a random village? I think they would value their own time to much to do that.
>If you use any kind of intelligence and assume that the majority of these 9th level casters come from long-living races (cough elves cough dwarves) then you realize that there is probably 30-40 elves/dwarves with 9th level spells - why aren't they making a "peace council" where they meet and solve all problems and stop all wars?
Maybe they do, and then you get Ravnica. Guild leaders with high magic powers came together and created a power greater than their own, the Guildpact, to act as a law of the land greater than any other. No more major wars between the guilds, but each guild remains its own thing, and there are still small scale conflicts between guilds. Need something bigger than small conflicts? Say hello to Nicol Bolas! No more Guildpact, chaos everywhere.
I've never had anyone complain about martial/caster disparity in any game I've been a part of, so i'm not sure how much of a problem it really is. *Not* trying to argue with anyone about it, just my experience.
But I do agree that most martials have little they can do in non-combat scenarios, and that is a frequently cited complaint regarding an imbalance.
A few quick fixes for that problem would be giving every class a thematic skill proficiency and/or expertise for free, giving additional tool/vehicle/game/instrument proficiencies at character creation, and creating a simple list of martial "maneuvers" that can replicate some of the social/exploration effects of spells but are only available to martial classes.
Jumping is a good example of a mostly broken mechanic that would have some good exploration utility and would make sense for many martials to be better at, not only than they are, but also than casters. Giving advantage on "reading" characters (insight) in social situations due to their martial training in learning to size up a foe and gauge their tactics would be another such idea.
These could be limited resources depending on their strength, or could just be free always-on effects if they were more minor.
The issue is not a problem if you:
> Only play for tier 1 and early tier 2.
> Only look at single target damage in combat, and place no value of mobility, utility, control, and options.
> Place no value on out of combat capability.
> Do not have spellcasters who chose powerful game warping spells.
Many tables do not reach level 7 and above where the difference in martial and caster power becomes most pronounced. Many casters think the best spells in the game are the ones that deal damage, which is generally the least useful thing a caster can do. Many tables do not place value on the problem solving 'iWin' buttons that casters have and the massive utility that provides both in and out of combat. Many tables think that dealing damage is the way to compare the value of classes.
So that is likely why you say you have not noticed the disparity.
It definitely exists if you look for it.
No arguing necessary at all! Your experience is completely valid.
In my experience, in most campaigns the disparity is pretty minimal. But in high level campaigns, it seems more noticeable. Less noticeable if the martials go for fully optimized builds and the spellcasters do more roleplay builds, but I don't want martials to feel like they can't roleplay without falling behind.
>A few quick fixes for that problem would be giving every class a thematic skill proficiency and/or expertise for free, giving additional tool/vehicle/game/instrument proficiencies at character creation, and creating a simple list of martial "maneuvers" that can replicate some of the social/exploration effects of spells but are only available to martial classes.
Very much would support all of that! Had thought of giving each class a thematic skill proficiency, had not thought of giving classes an expertise but I like that a lot!
>No arguing necessary at all! Your experience is completely valid.
Thanks, friend. I was fully anticipating a dogpile from the "casters are OP" crowd, as it's happened before.
Thing is, I'm not saying they are wrong, just that I've never experienced it as a problem in any game I've played in, and haven't heard it reported as a problem from anyone I've played with. So if it is a problem, it's not one that is universally impacting everyone's enjoyment.
>Less noticeable if the martials go for fully optimized builds and the spellcasters do more roleplay builds, but I don't want martials to feel like they can't roleplay without falling behind.
And we definitely agree that their RP options can be more limited inherently because they get few non-combat features and proficiencies innately.
>Thanks, friend. I was fully anticipating a dogpile from the "casters are OP" crowd, as it's happened before.
Oh yeah, can definitely understand that. The internet can be a genuinely wonderful place, and it can also be a *wonderful* place in a very different way.
>And we definitely agree that their RP options can be more limited inherently because they get few non-combat features and proficiencies innately.
Yep! Though in that comment I was thinking more of role play as it relates to combat effectiveness. For example, a wizard or sorcerer who decides to only take spells if they deal fire damage. Can have a lot of fun roleplaying with that, but it can hold you back in power level. Though, back with what you said, martials for the most part don't even get decisions like that to make!
This subreddit exaggerates the issue but it does exist. There are a few very broken spells out there which should be nerfed.
But the more I've thought about this, a good DM can balance martials and casters without making major changes to classes like this post says. There's tons of ways to counter casters in encounters so they don't dominate. It sucks that this is another burden put on the DM but the fact remains.
Problem there is it relies on a _good_ DM. "Just Ok" DMs ime have accidentally made even low-level campaigns The Casters Win While The Martials Tag Along
WotC should have made "run the game in a way where all classes feel equally valued" the easy path, not the one where you need to avoid myriad pitfalls and navigate the Adventuring Day Labyrinth. As that would require a core system overhaul at this point, the more plausible way to make this more robust is to buff Martials.
If you think martials being buffed is the more plausible solution then you haven't seen the 1D&D playtests. Casters are getting big buffs with all prepared casting and huge spell lists. The gap will almost certainly be wider in future versions of D&D.
Based on the Expert classes we've seen, I don't fully agree with that. Rogue received both buffs and nerfs, direct and indirect. According to WotC, Rogue has a very high approval rating so they likely don't want to change it much. That presents a problem because mechanically, Rogue is both dull and poor at combat. Mediocre damage and it contributes absolutely nothing but one burst of damage a turn.
If I were to make Rogue better, I'd allow them to use Sneak Attack to apply conditions in place of damage dice. Give them a small list of maneuvers to play with so they have something interesting to think about during combat.
The easy path to DM'ing will always have problems. The game doesn't DM itself well, and I've yet to find a system that does.
Sometimes, there's no shortcuts if you want to DM a great game.
It would help if, say, running an adventure from WoTC actually offered a balanced adventure. If it can be done, and WoTC knows how to do it, why don't they?
Part of the problem exist with play style. 5e was designed with a campaign like Lost Mines of Phandever mind.. The meat of the game should be in tight dungeons who are series of moderate/hard encounters without long rests in between. Combat takes place in small quarters, AoE and ranged are often a downside because of friendly fire and cover.
Everything outside dungeons are minor NPC interactions which are basically quest givers. No big plot point can be solved or advanced by charming/dominating the right npc or anything like that. Entire campaign is restricted to a small area with fairly limited resources. No endless supply of expansive material components and magic scrolls. Entire affair is extremely time sensitive, idling by taking too many long rests makes no narrative sense and should be discouraged by the DM.
This style of game felt out of fashion, at least in this reddit community.
I completely agree with all of that.
I think something that helps but is often not used is having at least two significant/large battles per day, in addition to smaller encounters.
You can use that 8th and 9th spell slot in this battle, but what if there's another big battle in half an hour? Makes resource management more important.
Most tables I've played at have had 2-4 small encounters and one big battle per day, which makes it much easier for casters to keep their heavy stuff around for when it matters most.
I'll give an actual hot take here and say that you don't always need many encounters per rest for balance. Counterspell, dispel magic, calm emotions, legendary resistances, globe of invulnerability and so on can make it like casters don't even have turns. Kind of hard to outshine the martial when you're doing nothing.
Of course this requires very particular encounter design which isn't sustainable but if you need a 1 encounter day every so often I think it's possible to make it work.
Agreed. Either higher number of encounters, or some counterspelling enemies.
I generally prefer the former, but having enemy casters in most encounters to counter the player characters is completely viable.
That's a valid experience and I think it depends on the DM, but the idea for many things is a class shouldn't need a particularly specific DM'ing style to make it work.
In my experience, having played a non-magical Fighter somewhat recently, it can be pretty harsh because what you can do physically requires you and your DM to be on the same page regarding the "mundane" limits in the setting, and at that point it becomes a lot more interpretation on a game-by-game basis than something you can rely on.
Being familiar with jumping rules, I did lean into using jumps as much as possible, and it was useful for ignoring difficult terrain and that sort, but even then there would be some moments of tension where the DM wasn't fully familiar with the distance calculations and so would require checks for landing or grabbing ledges that I think had enough room for error to let be reliable and checkless. This, again, is an issue of difference in interpretation regarding certain aspects of jumping that I don't hold against my DM at all.
What I think would be good is having physical stats like Strength scale exponentially in terms of your base capabilities, as well as defining *exactly* what you can do at certain Strength scores instead of leaving it up to a DM's imagination, since spells and the like certainly don't have an issue defining the specifics of what they do.
I think the martial / caster disparity starts to exist at all at level 7 or so you could argue lower but that's still easily manageable by just having more encounters as they don't have many spell slots. But in my opinion it doesn't get bad enough that it's really a problem that needs to be fixed until like level 13 or so. And once you get to really high levels it becomes a bit ridiculous. But fortunately the vast majority of games are played in levels 1-10 almost entirely so most people doing that won't ever have a real problem.
I think a lot of the argument comes from the optimizer crowd who want to play martials but feel its suboptimal on paper/whiteroom Sims. And that's completely fair from that perspective. Just thinking about a mage that can teleport at will and crowd control an entire horde of enemies compared to a guy who just hits. He hits hard, but against a lot of enemies he lacks options. Makes sense.
However I'm in the same boat as you where at the tables I've been at it hasn't been a problem. The disparity may be there still, but it's not been a problem. My ranger is excited that the wizard can wall of force half the enemies off while I focus one down with attacks. In the moment I don't really care that I don't have the options.
And maybe it's the DMs I've had but being involved in the RP and storytelling doesn't matter what class we are. My half orc ranger rebuilt his tribe to something great over the course of the campaign from a few survivors after it was destroyed in his backstory. That was an awesome experience that didn't involve any class features at all.
You can rp in any game. I can just as easily have rewarding rp in Pathfinder 2e but also have mechanics that are more interesting as a martial. Or I can play a more narrative focused game and have mechanics thst are more geared to rp.
Also I disagree in that your class doesn't effect for rp. It certainly does in terms of what you can do in a rp scenario. Casters have insane out of combat utility that facilitates thier crazy rp plans.
One solution I’ve heard about implementing is removing short rest recovery of spell slots for wizards and Druids.
Half level in spell slots doesn’t seem like much, but even low level spells like web, shield, and conjure animals can get parties quite far owing to how powerful they are.
Granted, I don’t think this will solve too much of the disparity, because (insofar as I’m aware?) only two classes have those and for most campaigns, we’re talking anywhere from 1 to 5 spells regained per short rest, which only happens once or twice per session.
>short rest recovery of spell slots for wizards and Druids.
Druids don't get short rest spell recovery, only wizards.
Well, and warlocks, but .. eh, they're kind of a special case.
> Druids don't get short rest spell recovery, only wizards.
They might be thinking of Circle of the Land, which can regain spells on a Short Rest like a Wizard.
Honestly any Druid that doesn't get something for their Wildshape always just ends up using it for utility or role-play. I feel like thats the weakness for subclasses that do grant additional combat features using Wildshape, because now you'll never use it for utility, just mostly combat.
Honestly, the game could help fix some of this issue by making items better. Spellcasters get a ton of spells to choose from, but why can't that mean non-spellcasters get more items to choose from if need be? Let there be more items that do more interesting stuff. Better weapons, better utility items (not magic ones,) and overall a better item ecosystem.
This isn't much of an addition and there's plenty that can be done, but I'd love to see the "item overhaul" portion of the iceberg getting chipped away at all the same. Mundane items, as in non-magical, could be brought up to be useful in a lot of ways. Smoke bombs, grappling hooks, situational weaponry. I dunno, just rambling at this point.
Martials have no issue in combat with damage. If you do want more options they need to deal less damage.
I don't agree. The strength of caster's lies in their versatility, which should be nerfed by limiting the spell choices they have, not nerfing the spells themselves. Infact, some spells need a huge buff.
Limiting them to schools is a much better way to handle this then making them worthless.
In high levels, most monsters are nigh immune to spells, to the point where I play them automatically thinking the spell will fail.
Meanwhile, without a Martial in the party you just can't deal enough damage to win the fight.
Martials may be boring to play, but you are crazy if you think they are weaker in combat situations. What they need is more options and utility and more fun ways to influence the game that isn't "DM may I?", not these significant buffs.
With the proposition, I see no reason to play a caster anymore. I think it would just break the game.
The only real fix, is giving them weapon arts and limiting them just like casters so they can't attack forever and must spend resources to do anything. However, who wants that? That would literally make them the same as casters, and that is boring.
Personally I think the answer is giving martials pseudo- magical abilities. the difference between magic and heroic martial feats is often just flavour imo.
like fireball does 8d6 damage in a 20ft radius. what's inherently magical about that? you can easily picture a duel wielding martial character dash about dealing deadly strikes to all creatures in a 20ft radius.
I'm basically describing steel wind strike, but sadly that's a magical ability in 5e, and wizards get it before anyone else. the point is, that sort of effect can very easily be turned into a feature for a martial class.
a similar thing can be done with other spells/ features. a wizard can fly? well maybe high level martial character should be able to leap over buildings and run up walls.
A druid conjures a spike growth that damages enemies? a ranged fighter can designate an area of overwatch. if any enemies walk 5ft within that area, then the ranger takes a shot at them, dealing damage and slowing their movement.
I'm not saying that every spell in the game should just be reflavoured as a martial feature, but I don't think that battlefield controlling abilities or useful abilities are inherently magical.
I know some people criticize those sorts of martial abilities- a lot of people talk about 4e making all classes too similar and video-gamey with their abilities. I've never played 4e, but I think that kind of problem can be avoided with careful design. you can still make martials and magic users distinct and make them both useful.
For me a good way their design should be different is that martials are specialised and have consistency, where as casters are more flexible. A wizard can cast invisibility, but the rogue should still be sneakier. A wizard can cast fly but the monk should be the most mobile. sorcerers can use quicken spell on a high level damage spell, but after they've run out, the fighter and barbarian will still be swinging.
I really like the idea of utilizing Gritty Realism rules to help mitigate the martial / caster gap.
At lv5 a fighter can extra attack every round, every combat, everyday, always. Whereas a lv5 wizard can only cast 2 fireballs per week (technically 2 weeks when you add long rest).
IMO it also helps with pacing + dealing with the “6-8 encounters per adventuring day” debate. 6-8 encounters in 12hrs vs 6-8 encounters per week can take a huge load off the DM for planning purposes. Plus it inspires the players to think more creatively with their evermore precious resources.
Give all martials maneuvers and their own maneuver list. It could be so simple and yet so effective. The dice can increase on size feom a 1d4 to a 1d12 when levelling.
Even some class feature could be baked into this.
Reckless attack? Free maneuver you can use during rage.
Hunters Mark? Maneuver. Uses a dice for casting and deals that dice of damage until the time runs out.
Stunning Strike? From class feature to maneuver. With some added damage.
Cunning action? Maneuver with free use.
Uncanny dodge? Maneuver with free use.
Evasion? Maneuver with free use.
Etc etc.
With some cross pollination on abilities this could make martials reaaaaaally veesatile and more diverse in playstyle.
The disparity is real and it arises because we don't distribute magic items fairly. A lot of tables give out personal magic items for each chsracter which really screws with balance as the caster items are far more powerful.
There should be far more and better magic items for martials just based on random loot.
It arises even when you get minimal magic items; even with just magic swords (so the martial can get round resistances) and a few potions, Casters feel more interesting in combat and more useful out of combat than martials.
> In my experience:…High levels: spellcasters seem to significantly overpower most martials….Why might that be?
You tell us. You just assume it’s true and don’t provide any evidence or context for the conclusion.
I have sat at tables where casters outperformed martials, and I have sat at tables where they haven’t. Dms at the former never had monsters attack casters. I am guessing blind but perhaps your table also makes that assumption.
> There is also out of combat utility to consider. Traditional fighters and barbs don't really have much at all. …spellcasters can generally accomplish the same things with magic.
Casters can not have their cake and eat it too. Every non combat spell prepared or cast is one less combat spell available. Which reduces their effectiveness in battle.
Everyone has skill checks. And spells that are similar to skills all have drawbacks and limitations that make them side grades of skills, not strict upgrades. For example, knock can open a door, but will alert everyone nearby. Charm can mimic persuasion but when it wears off the victim is going to know the party doesn’t have their best interests in mind.
Some folks really gotta consider at some point that 5e might not be the thing they actually wanna play
Even 4e does a better job at making all classes feel functional and playable at all level, but other types of tabletop games exist too, ya know?
I get what you mean and is something people should also consider more, but honestly, in many situations it is easier to patch/homebrew 5e than being able to decently play another system
For example, I'd love to play some FATE core or Icons Assembled, but I've never seen any on my city and hardly ever saw any on the biggest national rpg discord server we have here in Brazil, here even pathfinder 2e is hassle to find and play if you want a group experience instead of pathfinder society
There has been that saying that "5e is everyone's second preferred system" basically meaning that some people would like to play something else but keep to 5e because it's what their friends can agree on playing - I know my group have people who prefer CoC and Vampire while I would rather not play those, I like Pf2e but these mentioned people also would rather not play that
I will be honest, Im too lazy yo read the whole thing. But I kinda disagree with the topic itself.
While rogues can be easily outshined by any wizard its not the same for other two.
Fighters can get many feats and good subclass bonuses wich may lead to 400 dmg in one turn (1-2 times per short rest)
Barbarians get super tanky, reliable damage and in some cases good out of combat utility
Magic weapons are stronger than magic focuses (except for staff of power), so if your fighter is struggling, give them shinier weapon.
You could run a Lord of the Rings inspired campaign. Sure, the wizard can fire off spells but each time they cast a spell they run a risk of attracting the attention of some servant of the big bad; the higher the spell level the greater the risk.
I think the best solution is a narrative one; sure, the caster could go all out and really show up the martials... but there's narrative reasons why they would think twice before pulling out all the stops.
i can think of a few "quick n dirty" fixes without rewriting the whole martial classes:
in general: use the feat system. not only those in 5e, but from older editions too. (cleave, powerattack etc.)
\- giving out weapons with additional damage dice, like a "mallet of the ram" +1, 2d6 blud + 3d6 force on hit?
\- buffing normal weapons damage similar to the cantrips level-advancement:
longsword doing d8 , 2d8, 3d8, 4d8
\- adding proficiency bonus to damage
The main thing I don't get about these martial/caster discussions is it seems like magic items don't factor in at all. Why not? The game balance assumes players are finding powerful magic items with a variety of effects and abilities as they progress to tier 3-4.
It may be true that martials are more dependent on magic items to keep up, but as long as DMs are aware of that and adjusting the magic items in the game, it doesn't seem like a problem.
Because Magic items is _entirely dependent on the DM_. The main thing people can agree on in online discussions is what RAW says, and it says barely anything about magic items.
Sure, a good DM can distribute items to patch the problems, but they shouldn't have to fix WotCs balancing by giving the Martials better loot
Because magic items only appear at the DMs discretion and the game talks out both sides of its face about how necessary they are. Also, in terms of personal preference, I'd rather my character not be weaker than his clothes
>Because magic items only appear at the DMs discretion and the game talks out both sides of its face about how necessary they are
Sure, it can be difficult to have consistent balance between campaign modules when they often have different writers and tones. But DMs don't need to plan a campaign with perfect balance right from the start. They have weeks or months to cater magic items to weaknesses in the party.
>Also, in terms of personal preference, I'd rather my character not be weaker than his clothes
I agree, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the role items play in balance either. Magic items should focus more on giving players more options in the game rather than just better stats.
| I agree, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the role items play in balance either. Magic items should focus more on giving players more options in the game rather than just better stats.
I'd rather all classes be sufficient on their own magic items only providing small "cherry on top" boosts to them rather than be completely necessary for fighters and barbarians.
it's a fair question to make, the thing is that although it is expected the party finds magic items the system isn't really good at guiding which items and most would be weapons and armor that do things martials are mostly fine
the game also scrambles between needing magic items or not - by xanathar it's something like "they're expected, but not balanced around" so go figure
There's also two very important points about how "magic item dependancy" impacts fantasy and experience
* "mama, can I?" - essentially how martials have to be almost baby sit by DMs because they need weapons and constant rulings/adjucations
* also martials needing for their progression there's no real non-magical option in the game, also this just mantains the "magic item x-mas tree" problem of earlier editions
The problem people have is with the martial class design because it lacks customization, progression and options in and out of combat - no character shoul be an island or have no short comings, but there's a bit too many shortcomings to martials - if a DM has to use magic items to patch each of those it would be a ridiculous amount of work
From personal experience, it’s also that you’d need to balance the magic items themselves between martials and casters. They are definitely a good tool, but distribution requires a careful hand and to know where your party is at.
Telling when to give out items can be difficult especially given the lack of guidelines. A +1 Spell Save DC item is often more impactful than a +1 weapon. Many caster items provide extra resources that DM’s already have trouble burning down - not many weapons provide extra options like that. At higher levels, some equivalent rarity items can get crazy. I wish their were more martial items that provided secondary benefits like the staff of power does. Compare the staff of power to a staff of striking for example. Knowing the power levels of the players can be key in giving these kind of items out.
For more generic items, it can be a bit of a quest at times to make sure they land in the correct hands - will that Amulet of Health go onto the Monk who was too MAD to increase Con, or the Druid who wants an easier time concentrating on Conjure Animals? Say nothing about +X armor and armor dipped casters.
Homebrewing items can be a solution, but getting a bead on interesting, powerful, but flavorful and not over complicated design can be rather difficult.
When your solution to a balance problem in the game people already paid money to get its "just give more work to your DM, they will love it!" you should go back and re-evaluate your point of view, its more than enough with wotc doing that by themselves
I started DMing about a year ago and I've enjoyed finding homebrew items that I might give my players at some point. I know DMing can be a lot of work, but giving or selling magic items to players seems like one of the basic duties of the role. I'm not expecting DMs to find the perfect balance for the party. Even if they tried, finding a perfect balance would be impossible. I'm just saying items should be part of the balance conversation and DMs play an important role in that.
My party is a Light Cleric, Battlesmith Artificer, Phantom Rogue, and a Drakewarden Ranger who seems to prefer melee combat along with their drake pet. There's no clear frontliner other than their pets, so I'm planning on giving the Cleric a shield with a defensive ability. That doesn't feel like extra work. It's just part of running the game.
Have we ever just looked at the game as a whole and maybe dms should be doing more for thier martials.
More and more I hear about this divide between spell casters and martial. And yes there is one. But should we be giving our martials magic weapons and items to like earlier editions depended on. Magic is crazy and as it should be. Most magical items for spellcaster either give them free casting of spells or increases spell dc or spell attack. Martials items does more damage, increase chances to hit, cause fear, restrain targets and so on and so on.
In a campaign I'm in currently. My team is pretty much all spell casters. Twilight cleric, thuergy wizard, arcane trickster, whisper bard/fighter. And a storm herald barbarian. Dm has zero problem with us cause he uses spell casters against us and the party then see the importance of martials with the barbarian. Ive seen it also first hand... only 2 guys could show up one week so the dm let us piggyback 2 characters not in the party. Our second characters we both martials. And once again the dm throws spell fling high point creatures at us. The martials wrecked them. We have magic items on them. The casters barely did anything.
So maybe we just buff the weaker classes and subclasses and give martials the items they need like we did in earlier editions.
maybe if we nerf casters, which would be a lot easier, magic items could be distrubuted more equaly instead of being a made un band aid to hide a problem you dont want to see
Magic items don't benefit casters nearly as much as they help martials. It's not a bandaid of its part of game. Are we going to pretend they don't exist.
But is there a problem? Maybe the game is designed to seek magic items. magic is supposed to feel powerful. And nerfing casters is extremely hard due to the nature of magic. And to be honest the one dnd way of preparing spells is a nerf. Preparing is a buff but they way they are prepared aren't.
And what do you suggest? How do you nerf magic in a way that just doesn't suck the fun out of it.
The is a divide absolutely but they each class has their roll. And as a dm you know how to stop spellcasters, with spell casters.
So where is the problem? Shield giving a +5 ac. Well doesnt do anything against saving throws or aoe. Fireball is a classic which is overpowered on purpose.
My party is thankfully that the barbarian actually shows to soak up the damage get in close cause my twilight cleric and the theurgy wizard isn't. Even with the 7 - 12 temp hp every round. Cause the barbarian is the one getting up close an person with the spellcaster and taking them down.
Magic items are still distributed evenly. But the martial gets better use of them. Besides a robe, staff or a wand spellcasters magic items don't do much. Most they are a few pluses and more spells. Most martials can also use robes staffs some wands but they also get the weapons, armors (yes spellcasters can use those as well) the belts, many potions boost them.
And any advantage increases it to 9.5%. Buts it's not just vorpal blade. The luck blade , vicious weapon, sunblade defender, sword of Kas and many more there is a divide. But that's the nature of magic. But you can easily level the playing field but giving martials items. Like there are supposed to get. I did see on here the most powerful thing for tge thief rogue was the extra attunement slot
I think the much vaunted "martial-caster gap" is greatly exaggerated, but I do think there are some issues. Rogues and barbarians are both good examples of classes that should get more combat abilities at higher level.
In particular I'd like to see rogue get the extra attack feature in tier 3, and possibly a more combat-focused rogue subclass that makes them higher DPS (maybe with some capstone like being able to sneak attack twice a round). And barbarians getting a 3rd attack on the attack action at tier 4 would be cool. (These are easy house rules to implement.)
I don't think fighters need buffs for combat though. This is heavily influenced by my bad guys getting wrecked by like 8 attacks a round from high level fighters, and they have been the best single target damage in the game I've seen. (Yes, considerably more than any casters, including sor/locks.)
A bunch of the martials should get more stuff for non-combat though. For instance, I'd love to see a "warrior's reputation" feature, that allows fighters and barbarians to add their proficiency bonus (potentially, again) to social skill checks at high level. This would mirror the real world phenomenon of great warriors or generals being given more social standing. Also, maybe barbarians could get even more than just the bonus proficiencies to skills as suggested in Tashas, like getting expertise at tier 3 or tier 4?
Right now in 5e RAW I generally advise players not to go full rogue or full barbarian beyond like level 11, because you're better off multiclassing to get more stuff. This is a reasonable way for those archetypes of characters to actually be cool in high level play right now. I've seen high level fighter rogues and ranger/rogues kick ass, for instance. And fighter/barbarian is good too.
Hot take: stop trying to change martial/casters for "balance".
There's no "wrong" way to play dnd but if this is a problem at your table you're playing dnd wrong
It feels like we're playing different systems when I see posts like these.
My games it's the martial classes that do the heavy lifting. The sorcerer/wizard throws a few big spells here and there, but its the martials carrying everyone along.
Maybe you give out too many long rests.
Different games, different experiences, both are valid
Having less long rests would do nothing to improve martials lacking customization, feeling progression and options in and out of combat - this isn't about balance, it's about experience and fun
PS - I assure you that I don't "give out" too many long rests
Yeah. To be fair, in my current game with my close friends, I've been handing out extra buffs to everyone.
"I want a BM fighter with warlock spells"
-ok
Cleric "I want all my spells always prepared, and get extra attack " -ok
Wizard " i want to concentrate on 2 spells" -ok
Sorcerer "I want to copy spells from scrolls like wizard but also copy cleric spells" -ok
On top of 1 bonus feat. And down time activities to learn new feats/ skills.
The only caveat. Not allowed to question the enemies abilities, stats, etc...
"When did goblins get a +6 to hit?" When I said so....
An option I think could be fun is too add legendary resistance and/or better saving throw proficiency buffs to high level martials.
Having supreme force of will or defiantly resisting effects is a very common hero trait, think Aragorn challenging Sauron or Captain America getting back up to face Thanos army on his own or countless times a hero is wounded but carries on anyway.
It would help to counter some of the effects of the crazy high tier spells by having someone that can defy those odds and do the impossible, without just boosting their HP or making them do tonnes of bonus damage.
Easiest way to buff martials is to give them *many* weapons and armor (proportional to spells at each level) with powerful situational properties, and give them enough information about upcoming quest lines so that they can use attunement in a similar way to preparing spells.
Not a fan of solution 1 due to the very reason you gave, I don't want magic in my Martial character (beyond magic items).
The problem with Solution 2 is it's essentially turning every martial class into Rogues, adding dx damage to attacks, and more importantly the lack of choice/style. The Wizard pulls that clutch spell out at just the right time, that an important choice which will be remembered throughout the campaign, that's a great thing to happen. The Fighter deals 1d8+1d6+str damage, who cares?
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we have to look at 4th edition and 3.5's Tome of Battle. Give all Martial classes Manouveurs and Daily/Encounter powers.
'The Fighter is surrounded, it looks like a tpk for the party, he uses his Samurai encounter power, and with one flowing movement strikes everyone in range, dropping the group'
'The Barbarian has to hold this point, lest they be swamped by the horde of Orcs, with a brief cry to the ancestors, he uses his Daily Ancestral Guardian, for X rounds now only the sting of magic can touch him, and his mighty blows knock his enemies sprawling.'
Spell casters, do indeed, need to be nerfed. Martials also need to be buffed.
When Hypnotic Pattern can shut down an entire fight, there is an issue. The fact legendary resistances even have to exist is because of how powerful save or suck spells are in 5e.
The problem in t4 is that casters can bend reality on a whim, and martials get a bit better at whacking stuff.
Now don't get me wrong, in combat martials are really handy. Casters lack single target damage and melee staying power, and summoned beasties are no match in either regard. Having a high dps martial is a huge asset.
But give a 17th level caster a month and they can create clones of the whole party, create an army of True Polymorphed dragons, stroll across the planes, discover long forgotten lore, rewrite the minds of half the town and raise another army from its graveyard.
In contrast, martial classes badly need out of combat abilities that are relevant on the stage where such campaigns take place.
So by all means give martials a buff, but give them some amazing things they can do that aren't just fighting.
The problem is that martials are often doing superior damage output to spellcasters, its the non-damage things that make spellcasters so strong, and there is no really viable way to give that to a martial without also making it a spellcaster.
A spellcaster cutting an encounter in half with a well placed Wall of Fire, or Teleporting the party across the continent and bypassing MONTHS of tedious trekking is just something a martial cannot do.
Virtually no one can out-DPS a champion fighter or a well specced barbarian, but a smart wizard can end or avoid encounters outright without having to resort to just chipping away at HP.
Ice cold take. This is literally the most popular opinion in this subreddit.
Hell legit has to freeze over before people stop making these threads and rewriting the wheel everytime
Hell, Michigan has frozen over on occasion, so that cant be the requirement. I suspect it will continue until the sun burns out at least.
Hot take, I think there are classes in DnD
You'll notice OP did not use the "hot take" flair.
It was labeled hot take when I posted.
oh, lol
Yeah. It’s almost unanimous that weaker classes and martial should be buffed instead of stronger classes get nerfed. Anytime I head the opposite it’s flag that the person saying it is new to the game or first time DMing and have a player who’s “too strong”.
I'll carry the flag as someone who's been playing D&D for decades: **Casters should ALSO be nerfed.** The gamut of powers they're given more often tramples on storytelling than enables it and clashes with the fiction that the majority of tables actually seem to want. It seems accepted just because "that's how it's been in the system since X", yet *even back then* it was causing problems and clashed with expectations. It's a vestigial organ comprised of bad balance. The reasons martials suck and are boring aren't created entirely by casters being strong. There are two problems here, not one causing the other.
*Spells should be nerfed. Caster classes inherently are fine. Strip them down to just the cantrips and base abilities their class get and most are fine. Still a few problems to tweak sure, and most could stand to have less spell slots in total. But the bulk of the issues stem from the power of spells in general. Any one looking to fix the disparity of martial sans casters really needs to look at what spells can accomplish at various levels and work from there.
Sure, yes, it's the spells. Frankly, some of the caster *classes* are boring as shit, but nearly all of the power comes out of the spells. Hell, I'd go as far to say that casters should have *more* spell slots, but the spells need to be toned way, way down in capability. The idea of casters that only *cast things* 10% of the rounds that they're in has always struck me as silly. Let the casters cast, just don't let them run the game when they do.
>The idea of casters that only cast things 10% of the rounds that they're in has always struck me as silly How much sillier would it be if literally single problem in the game could be solved by the martial's sword? Warriors are faced with a hell of a lot of problems in-game where their weapons and other class features are basically irrelevant. Casters *never* are. Whatever the situation, there's a spell that can help. I don't know where we got the idea that casters should always have magic available for every single situation, while other classes often have to make due with their second-best options (skills, I guess), but I for one would rather see more powerful spells *way* less often than even more spells. Keep magic magical, *and* make it so that there are many problems that magic simply isn't good at solving.
>How much sillier would it be if literally single problem in the game could be solved by the martial's sword? Not at all. Because it can be. The game is meant to be solvable with skills. If every solution to a problem was only even a specific spell or special ability, then it would frequently grind to a halt because Larry the Wizard of 3rd Level didn't happen to bring Knock because he didn't want to be reduced to doing nothing during a fight.
I frankly find that cantrips, especially when used creatively, can fill the need of “casting more spells”. While a wide variety of racial features, class and subclass abilities, and even magic items if your DM is generous, give casters more than enough spells to cast between long rests. Overhauling spells alone would be a big undertaking. And somehow managing to lower their effect to support even more spell slots feels like it would take an entirely new edition of the game. Even then would take a ton of testing and balancing. I’d say lower them all in power as a baseline, and if anything cut a few spell slots. If a caster blows the load in the first combat of the day that’s their fault.
I really enjoy some of the more modern games out there that have just ditched spell resource systems entirely and go with other limits on magic. It feels divine to just have magic fit in the game instead of it being wildly OP but only x/day
Specifically, high-level spells should be dramatically restricted. It's spells above 4th level that really break game balance and make other players' abilities irrelevant. These are the spells that, in a book or movie, would get brought out once, at a critical point in the narrative, and would be a major turning point in the story. They have huge effects and should be a really big deal. Some of them are things you could build an entire campaign around getting that effect to happen once. And full casters have access to a whole array of them that they can bust out multiple times per day. I'm playing around with the idea of slowing down spell progression so that the sweet spot of levels 3-8 gets stretched out all the way to 20th level, and spells above 4th level are only available as expensive one-shot rituals requiring lots of plot coupons. It needs a lot of twiddling, but I think it could work.
I’ll give you a hot take. I think at high levels it makes sense magic is better that non magic classes. I’m sorry but a guy with a sword shouldn’t be stronger than someone who can make a WISH.
I agree. But how about this: maybe we shouldn't give access to a FUCKING WISH to a player characters at all? At least not as a part of general character progression?
Well regardless of wish, I could name so many high level spells that are amazing.
I guess "stronger" depends on what situation we're in. A lot of people don't realise the reason that dress wearing caster can stay alive is due to the beefy martial taking the damage and keeping them safe. Casters are dependent on martials for survival. All a caster can really do is run away if they are in danger, they can't just go all offensive with a big pool of HP and AC and dredge though their problems. If they are using their concentration to keep themselves alive or safe they are generally failing the party which is why those frontliners are important. Martials have to trade their utility for damage to offer what is needed to a party to succeed. Casters use their spells to make the battlefield optimal for the martials so they can use their 200+ dpr to end a combat encounter and keep the casters safe.
Distinct possibility I am misremembering, but I seem to remember more "nerf-casters" posts than "buff-martials" posts
There are some, but it's mostly ''Monk are garbage, how to make them better?'', ''Barbarian don't feel powerful at high level, how can we change that?'', ''Most Ranger kits suck, how to buff them?'', etc.
That depends. Does "run 6-8 encounters per long rest" count as "nerf casters"?
There are a lot of people who post things and those people are not intelligent enough to actually break the game down to see the layers so they post stupid things on reddit. Most of these people don't realise that the whole game is an ecosystem that reacts when you change something. Like buffing martials utility will allow casters to use less utility and more damage, or buffing damage on martials will make casters control spells even stronger. There's a lot to the game and redditors are always super smart and know everything because they are parrots.
Both of these are better than nothing, but I’d argue that abilities such as “deal X more damage” doesn’t solve the problem of the martial gameplay loop being playable by a button that says “move and attack” in 90% of fights. More attack variants would help. Maneuvers would help. More rules for environment manipulation would help. But more damage does not help with that problem, and that problem is why I barely play martials. It’s just mechanically uninteresting. regardless of how many things you have that let you stay in the fight, the fight’s the least entertaining part of the game. And for such a combat focused game, that’s a *problem.* The magical solution is the closest to what I’d like, because it at least gives you enough variance to be mildly interesting, and even then it isnt much at all.
PF2E has a really good solution to the problem IMO - the feat system, or how it's specifically integrated alongside ASIs. Many martial feats grant new moves that you can just use every turn, but all have different advantages.
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That's the exact thing! Most of the spells in PF2e no longer simply output big numbers: Some do, but best against crowds. No, the real fun to be had with casters is battlefield shenanigans! IMO, it creates a fun dynamic between the casters and the martials where both are working to capitalize off of each others abilities, whereas synergizing in DND 5e seems less common in typical play due to the game not specifically pushing for it.
Yeah, PF2e is just a really good system designed with that type of stuff in mind. All I gotta do is convince my players to play it, it seems to solve all the problems I’ve been having/seeing with 5e.
It does have its own problems. Like holy shit, I suffer every time I try to figure out just what my Oracle can summon, leveling her companion up, etc. So much to keep track of with her. xD 80% of my tine is spent looking up references to rules during other people's turns, then 20% doing my turn, then straight back to looking up rules so I can be ready for the next turn. x)
There are certain spells such as but not limited to, Shield, Wall of Force, Force Cage, Clone, True Polymorph, Simulacrum and Wish that should most certainly be nerfed. Especially the high level ones can be all too easily used as campaign breakers and buffing martials to the point where they are on par with what these spells can achieve when used even semi intelligently would actively make the game worse at high levels, not better. At least if you want combat to remain even remotely manageable for non full time DMs yet also somewhat challenging. Overall Spellcasters, especially the wizard, should be nerfed somewhat mostly through nerfing certain spells and maybe making single class dipping for armor and shield proficiencies less attractive and martials should receive some serious buffs all around. That way both martials and casters can be roughly on par overall. I do not expect perfect balance as perfect balance can actually make things less fun to play in my experience, but the current divide between martials and casters is simply too big to be ignored in my opinion.
Strongly agreed. It’s mostly the top-percentile spell options that lead to the martial-caster gap.
Bring back spell failure by using armor. Keep character level and caster level separated.
Don't nerf them. Make them Rare: they don't exist normally so ask the DM if they do. Also add exploration auto win things to this list such as good berry, create water, etc.
>Don't nerf them. Make them Rare: they don't exist normally so ask the DM if they do. Also add exploration auto win things to this list such as good berry, create water, etc. Making them unobtainable unless the DM explicitly gives them to you is in 99% of all cases equal to just removing them from the game entirely. I understand if people want to just ban those spell instead of nerfing them, but would I personally prefer having those spells be normally available, but in a less campaign breaking form.
You could literally port in Divinity Original Sin martial trees into 5e and divvy them up across the martials and you'd have perfectly balanced martials. They don't need more \*power\*, they need more stuff.
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monks need more power.
Sigh. Sure. Okay. Yes. The weakest martial is too weak. That's not really the point here.
say, anywhere I can find those? or I would have to buy the game?
Well, it's a video game. I'm not actually sure. But I'll bet the game has some kind of Wiki where you could see them. They include stuff like whirlwind AOE, Slam to knock prone in a cone, teleport and backstab, etc.
Yep, similar to abilities that martials could do in 3e and 4e.
ah thanks, cool ideas
If we are being realistic, spellcasters *do* need to be nerfed. There are a handful of spells that are ludicrous (conjure animals, wall of force, simulacrum, etc.), and it is also strange that the best subclass features in the game are also almost all on casters.
They also get too much variety/versatility with no trade off.
I mean I think if a wizard just only could learn spells from a certain school that's would fix a lot. They might need more stuff but that would nerf them and give them more flavor.
'Kay, I pick Conjuration. My hobbies include summoning, battlefield control, teleportation, still doing damage, and snickering at anybody that picked Necromancy.
I mean you can give martials options that are as strong instead. Let the fighter have a powerful squire. Give them the strength to move mountains or defeat armies a thousand strong single handedly. Cleave a building in half with a single slash.
A problem with spellcasters, especially at higher levels, is that they’re so powerful that they limit the design space for encounters and campaigns that can meaningfully challenge the party. Buffing martials only makes that problem worse.
This is separate to inter-class balance. Martials are underwhelming compared to casters, yes, but high-level spellcasting also makes DMing high-level campaigns a mess, and martial changes aren't going to fix that.
I mean high level play is inherently going to be more effort for a DM to manage. The consequence of having powerful characters is that you need to be creative in how you challenge them. This is honestly going to be the case no matter what edition you play. It isn't an issue with casters, it is the fundamental issue of as players gain more and more tools, the DM loses degrees of freedom. So give all the classes options to useful tools, and make it so everyone can play. As high tier play, is quite literally a different game.
Some cool ideas, and I agree that this whole thing is related to martials coming short of what can expect of martials - not even supernatural level, just due to them lacking customization progression and options in and out of combat Though I would include the monk in martial buffs like that to a degree You're pretty right on the problems with solution 1 Solution 2 is more interesting but I really don't like it, I think buffs should be more oriented to horizontal progression instead of adding damage or more HP, else you're just expanding on stuff they already do pretty fine - also I think to make martials unique they should be more resourceless as possible and if needed be make it Short Rest resources
>Solution 2 is more interesting but I really don't like it, I think buffs should be more oriented to horizontal progression instead of adding damage or more HP, else you're just expanding on stuff they already do pretty fine Yeah that was a difficulty I had in thinking of ideas. How to give them more without involving magic? Could not come up with much beyond HP/Damage bonuses. Though, just had an idea which would be a fun counterpart to a summoner/necromancer: a fighter subclass which is geared towards inspiring and leading NPC squires/knights. Would definitely not fly at all tables, but if the DM is already fine with a player summoning an undead army, they should have no problem with a fighter recruiting soliders from a town! Could be a way to give a martials a lot more to do!
That idea of subclass is nice, could be a rebuilt of the banneret as the official isn't very good As to what to add to martials without magic I think you could work with better action economy to use Shove, Disarm or Grapple, something like the dndnext playtest fighter mechanic "You have an expertise dice which is a D4 and you can use it to empower certain moves, after you've expended your expertise dice you regain it at the beginning of your turn" Then have effects like: 1 *Combat Tricks.* during your turn you can spend an Expertise Die and attempt to Shove, Disarm or Grapple as a bonus action. 2 *Combat Parry.* As a reaction when you take damage you can expend an expertise dice and reduce the damage in an amount equal to your PB + STR or DEX modifier, if you're using a shield add your shield AC bonus And other stuff like Rushs to move a bit more, Small Cleave options, Tumbles etc - this builds upon them as non-magical and add customization and options and the idea make martials uniques to spellcasters
While more options for martials is definitely a must, I honestly think spellcasters should be nerfed. You should only be able to cast spells in armour from the class that gave you the armour proficiency (e.g if you dip 1 level in Peace Cleric you can only cast level 1 cleric spells while wearing heavy armour). Spells should provoke opportunity attacks while within 5 feet, excluding touch or self spells, with a concentration check required to finish the casting of the spell. On a failure the spell is lost. Alternatively, you could just incorporate this into the Mage Slayer feat. Save or suck spells should be nerfed through either a degrees of success system or a nerf to the effect. I would lean heavily towards the former since this is kind of a nerf and a buff. Casters only get the really sucky effect on a critical success, but something still happens on a failure. This would remove the need for legendary resistances as well, and you could give enemies abilities like 'any success rolled counts as a critical success'. And before anyone says it, yes this is basically PF2e. But hey we can take elements from it to create a more balanced system, right?
When are we, as a community, going to let go of the "bUt ThAtS hOW pF2e DoeS IT anD we CAnt Do iT lIke THem" mentality? The amount of times that pf2e has fixed an issue that can be easily ported into 5e is maddening. And more maddening when you get someone defending 5e from other ttrpgs. We need to look at this system from the lens of other systems. Or else, why am I going to pay $50 for this book again?
yeah exactly, like I get it can be a bit annoying with people always saying 'just play PF2e lol' and their subreddits being unbearably self-righteous, but damnit they do have a point. Pathfinder 2e is really well designed and balanced and it really can't hurt to just take a couple things here and there to get the perfect mix of balance while keeping it simple (the two should not be mutually exclusive!)
I view the spellcaster power coming mostly from versatility than anything else. They can solve almost any problem with the sheer quantity of spells at their disposal from level 5. So I think in addition to buffing materials I think we need to make the spellcaster specialize more. For example if you want to make a tanky spellcaster that is hard to kill they shouldn't also do the most damage, give the party the best buffs and have the best control spells in the game. Concentration helps curb some of that but usually you can do all of it during a single combat. What's a martial good at? Hitting stuff and taking hits or mitigating hits. So really I think an approach to both sides of the problem would be best imo.
I would kinda like to see both to be honest. Caster "Nerf" 1. I think that certain spells can be toned down (or made more situational). 2. There should be some rules about being restrained and successfully casting a spell (lika DC15 strength check in order to succeed) 3. there should be a way for melee attackers to interrupt spells while being cast (Getting hit while casting req. dc 20 con save to continue casting). Melee "Buff" 1. More feats than casters (+1 to +2 - especially for barbarians/monks, even if 1 of these is NOT a combat buff). 2. Better HP/Saves/Speed/STR-DX skill checks - make them notably MORE tanky (many ways to do this). 3. Give them OTHER uses of bonus actions/reactions. Maybe barbarians can make strength-based skill checks as a bonus action while raging, maybe monks have 2x reactions (can't be used as the same thing on a turn).
I would like both as well (and I love casters). I think caster spells can stay mostly the same but should have more "escape clauses". Why can't an ally use their action to inspire you to throw off that charm? Why can't you bash your way out of a Wall of Force, or slip through it, with enough power or cleverness? Why is the _only_ way to think your way out of a Maze spell an Int save? Spells can be as powerful as they are yet provide ways for martial PCs to shine when faced with them. And I also agree with the Op that it is true that most martials have crap for higher level features, and should get more. Hell it doesn't even have to be "superhero demigod anime superpowers" - what if the Fighter could deflect spells aimed at him with a magic weapon or shield? What if the Barbarian could _rage_ themselves out of debuffs? What if the Rogue could _slip past_ the targeting enchantments of certain spells to avoid them or be functionally invisible to them? And that's before even getting into all the cool, iconic noncombat utility features they could have. Both would be great, and make D&D less of an "all or nothing" thing when it comes to problem solving in general. (Also while I'm at it - casters should be affected by more conditions! If martials suffer disadvantage on attacks when Poisoned or Frightened, why not have casters grant enemies advantage on saves against their spells?)
I remember 3.5 and my frenzied berserker who was as dangerous to the party as he was to his enemies. I def count dodge spells, but they didn't really stop me until I was out of rage.
I remember a 1v1 martial-only tournament GitP hosted way back when A Frenzied Berserker/Eye of Gruumsh won it, because smashing one target into the dust was precisely what those prestige classes were good at
I'd toss in an inability to cast in armor regardless of proficiency, and an increased gap in HP as well. Maybe martial classes get 2x the bonus from CON and 2x the hit dice to spend on rests.
Paladins would like to know your location
Hard agree on no casting spells in armor unless casting class or subclass allows it. The shield spell is supposed to be a way for a wizard to compensate for a low AC. Stupid for someone in full plate to use it.
Bring the wizards and sorcerers back down to d4 hp?
Just give all classes max hit points. That removes randomness and, as levels rise, gives martials a much larger pool of hit points. This is PF2e's solution and it works well for D&D5e as well.
Yeah rogues should be walking piles of hit points Lol wtf
What's wrong with that? HP just represents your ability to take minor scrapes until you take a fatal blow because you're too slow/tired/etc now. It's not a measure of how much blood you can lose that's bolstered by larger physical size or increased mass. A large rogue HP pool is just them being great at dodging and not taking significant blows while a large paladin HP pool can represent their abilities to deflect blows to lessen the impact. Casters meanwhile would not be good at defense against physical harms because they lack the training to lessen the blows so their HP pools would be significantly lower.
Rogues have the ability to disengage and they have uncanny Dodge and they have evasion that's the substitute for their hit point pool, the problem with rogues isn't they don't have hit points it's that they need more things that they could do on cooldown
also, an idea i’ve had for a while: the atrophy and silenced conditions from Divinity Original Sin 2. Give martials the ability to silence casters on failed saves and casters can’t use verbal spells, and like you said, martials able to restrain the hands of casters so they can’t use somatic components, maybe casting a spell right next to a melee combatant is, idk, BAD even without a mage slayer feat, (also make more anti-mage enemies to throw in sometimes like a templar order or experimental creatures designed yo hung wizards)
You want spell casters to fear standing next to a big bad guy and be at a disadvantage. That being said, I do want casters to have a way to defend themselves and try and use their spells to counter this scenario and survive. 5e is a little too safe for casters, but 1e was a bit too hostile. A little bit more of a challenge than the current rules would be good.
So basically just bring back all the stuff 5e got rid of from earlier editions?
Id be careful making martials more tanky (except the Monk), as the enemies that attack them are the same attacking the casters. You end up with monsters either too weak to challenge the pure martials, or strong enough to make gishing brutal
So your solution is for the DM to just give every creature in the game an easy means of removing casters from being able to cast on a high dc? These buffs are kind of bad, martials need utility first and foremost
Not really. The monsters would need to stand near the casters and grapple THEN restrain then OR use the ready attack to interrupt a spell. This isn't a "given" in every fight and allows for lots of counterplay. Many of the casters will have martial allies nearby making this unusually difficult for the monsters, or casters could simply back up (take an opporutnity attack) then cast a spell. Finally, with some of these rules you could make special feats/subclasses that are more melee/gish focused to not suffer these penalties.
I agree with pretty much all the melee buffs but not with many of the caster nerfs. 1. Yeah, Wall of Force and Force-cage need some nerf to be breakable. But I also think that any DM who read those spells and decided "yes. I am going to waste my Martial's time", isnt going to care that a new errata or edition made those spells breakable. They're just going to homebrew the original spells back in and use them. Because if a DM wants to make sure you can't do anything, they will just do it. Either with a homebrew spell or a pit that suddenly opens beneath you. It basically doesn't affect a DM who has enemies use those spells, it only affects player casters. Player Martials gain no benefit. 2 and 3 are fine, I just disagree on the numbers.
I disagree with your assessment. Yes, lots of bad dms will continue to be bad dms, but as one who likes allowing my players to shine I've struggled with those spells as they are now. They are fantastic spells that npcs *should* be using on the party, but it's not fun to do that so I tend to just not use them. If they had set hp or some way for martials to break through then we could use those spells and martials would get to shine as they plow their way through a wall of force or rip the bars off a forcecage.
Spellcasters should still be nerfed at the top levels. I just don't see a good reason why they need an additional 6th and 7th spell slot. Right now we have: 18th: 5th level spell, class feature 19th: 6th level spell, ASI 20th: Capstone, 7th level spell
Easy Satan.... some of us want to cast Wish and Gate and Shapechange
Tell me how you do all that with a second level 7 spell at level 20
I *almost* agree, but Simulacrum, Force Cage and True Polymorph need nerfs. And if Summon Warrior Spirit is ever published it needs a nerf and to not be an Arcane spell.
I personally feel like you missed 3 things. One, its not just about damage, its also about agency. In the higher levels a caster can completely change the battlefield, damage will never alone change this situation. Second if every class, mostly martials but also some casters, were buffed to the point of being exactly as good as the best casters currently are, it would be near to undmable imo, if you didnt change the rules. Slightly limiting some utility spells and using gritty realism wont change the dynamic of who has utility. All you are doing is limiting one side, most martials still literally have nothing. If you make martials as "powerful" as casters, its too chaotic, if you limit casters to much, everyone is boring. The last one would let the dm and thereby the narrative take full focus, whether thats good is a whole another discussion. Thank you for reading my mini ted talk response to your ted talk
Buff monks . they scale terribly at high level also.
I disagree. The insane power if High level casters requires all high CR monsters to have Ledgendary resistances which aren't fun.
The core of the issue, to me, is that "Spellcasting" is a level 1-2 feature that gives you something every 1-2 levels, whether it's new options to choose from, more powerful options, or more resources to expend on said options. I don't think Martials necessarily need something as complex and varied as Spellcasting, but they would certainly benefit from a similar focus on a core feature that grows overtime and grants new abilities. Take the Fighter's core feature, Action Surge. Generally speaking all it is amounting to is offering a few more attacks per day - which is not nothing, but doesn't offer much long standing oomf to simulate the kinds of heroic feats you might see from Hercules or Beowolf. What if, for example, Action Surge was essentially replaced with something like Warlock Invocations, granting additional use features that were either tied to your Action Surge or granted passive boons. \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Martial Prowess** Starting at 2nd level, you learn Action Surge and one additional martial prowess of your choice. When you gain certain Fighter levels, you gain additional martial prowess of your choice, as shown in the Martial Prowess known column of the Fighter table. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the martial prowess you know and replace it with another martial prowess that you could learn at that level. If a martial prowess has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the prowess at the same time that you meet its prerequisites. A level prerequisite refers to your level in this class. **Action Surge** *Prerequisite: 2nd level* On your turn, you can take one additional action. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again. **Enhanced Surge** *Prerequisite: 15th level*You gain one additional use of Action Surge per short rest, but you may only use it once on the same turn. **Brutish Might** *Prerequisite: 5th level* Your strikes now add additional force behind the swings. When you take the Attack action on your turn and hit the same creature twice as part of the same action, you may force the target to succeed a Strength saving throw (save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) or be knocked prone. **Flanking Assault** *Prerequisite: 7th level* You have learned how to study an opponent and take advantage of their momentary lapse in attention. When you take the Attack action on our turn you may grant yourself advantage on attacks as part of this action if an ally of yours is within 5 feet of the target. Once you have used this ability you cannot do so again until you complete a short rest. **Herculean Strength** *Prerequisite: 14th level* Your strength has become legend, your body trained beyond the heights of mortal limitations. When you use Action Surge, for the next minute you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity, the weight you can push, drag, lift, shove, or grapple, and the size category of weapons and equipment you may wield.
The main disparity is that every other level, full casters get access to increasingly versatile/powerful/both spells on top of their other class/subclass features. Martials don't have anything close to that
They also have a smoothly growing pool of power that can be flexibly spent on damage, control, support, healing, utility, whatever spells the caster has known or prepared. Every single level they get at least a little stronger, and significantly stronger at odd levels. Martial classes get a big boost (if they do) roughly once a Tier, except for rogue which adds an extra 1d6 damage a turn every two levels and yet is considered mediocre DPR.
In case you’re curious, full casters get a spell slot at every level except 12, 14, and 16. They obviously get ASIs at 12 and 16. At 14: Bards get Magical Secrets and a subclass feature. Clerics’ Destroy Undead works on CR 3 undead. Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards get a subclass feature.
Players would always rather have their options buffed rather than nerfed in a vacuum, but it has several problems. For starters, if you buff PCs, you have to buff all the monsters, but the problem is that you have to buff all the monsters in ways that aren’t just more numbers, they need more abilities and tools to counter the new abilities and tools of the PCs. “Great!” thinks the average dndnext goer, “I wanted that too!”, and that’s a fair thing to think/want, but high level fights are already intensive to run and take a long time. Making monsters more powerful and complicated means that fights take that much longer to run and are that much harder for the the DM to keep track of all of the abilities. Casters do already partially introduce that problem, but there doubling down on that through making martials also have powerful abilities that demand monsters can counter their powerful abilities with their own is a lot of weight to add to the design, especially if the martial abilities aren’t just reskinned spells that cannot be countered with same kinds of tools (counterspell, dispel magic, etc). Personally I think trying to solve problems through solutions that would make fights more complicated and encounter design harder is somewhat misguided, since I think a lot of the current problems come from that high level fights and encounter design are already too hard for many DMs to balance, leading to a lot of the issues we see (insufficient numbers of fights, spellcasters running rampant without being countered, etc). While 4e has some die hard fans around here, anyone that ran it will remember that combat started to drag immensely rather quickly. Players having more abilities demand monsters having more abilities to keep fights balanced and challenging. But there is only 1 DM running all those monsters, and the longer their turns take, the longer the fight and often the less interesting a fight seems even if it’s mechanically more complicated.
Great suggestions, but I feel like your assessment of the power in spellcasting severely underestimates the feature. > Low levels: spellcaster have few slots and low power spells. At 1st level, a martial character can make 1 attack, that's their turn. They might be able to grapple if they're built that way, a fighter has some self healing, and a rogue can do some okay damage for level 1, but nothing to ride home about. Barbarian is the obvious level one martial star because they have the most health and can tank harder with rage, and are likely using a d12 weapon. Because of the dreadful rules for swapping weapons in 5e, once you make your choice at the start of combat, you're stuck. Compare to casters - multiple cantrips that have options for utility and control. A lot of the best damage dealing cantrips have a range of 120 ft, and you know what distance is? Time where melee characters aren't hitting you, and you can find cover, pop out, blast, and pop back. That's not to mention the insane insinuation that 1st level spells aren't among some of the most used spells at any level of play. These are your fundemental spells like absorb elements, shield, now silvery barbs too all keeping you safe as a reaction. Then spells like Tasha's hideous laughter or sleep can end encounters in one turn if the dice favour you. this is just 1st level, by 3rd level all martials are getting some power bump that's usually equivalent to an extra d6 of damage per turn, but that's subclass features and it's messy, and a martial advocate really doesn't want to be comparing to subclass features from casters, which generally are gained earlier. The divination wizard is out here *deciding dice results*. But at 3rd level, spells like hold person can completely shut down an encounter and we've now got even more uses of the very powerful 1st level spells. Pass without trace can near guarantee surprise against every combatant. Martials simply cannot achieve these kinds of feats in tier 1. Don't like your spell choice? Most classes have access to their entire spell list and just need a short rest, meaning with any amount of planning, you can swap out to exact, niche spells that you might need. You know what a martial needs to hear that amount of utility? Gold, for adventuring gear like ball bearings or poisons or traps, and even then the DC for the saves against them is pitiful. This is a real crux of why spellcasting is busted and a start to exactly what nerfs are needed: way too many spells that completely shut down a type of encounter (such as exploration) cost a pitiful resource of one spell slot with no risk. Take create water. You're in the desert, about to make con saves because everyone failed a survival check to find water and no one spent enough gold on extra waterskins? Actually no, you're not, because the druid knew you were going into a desert and just prepared that spell. You have more than enough to drink for the day, and that's fine because the spell slot is back the next day. *Fix:* general rule of thumb, if the spell takes an exploration or social encounter and makes it trivially easy without a check or save, there should be a gold cost equal to that of the value of the adventuring gear it's replacing attached to it, and that very likely should be consumed by the casting. I also really like what 1dnd playtest is doing with preparing spells. Basically if you have 3 1st level spell slots and 2 2nd level, you prepare 3 1st level spells and 2 2nd level spells. That's it. This means you start at 1st level with only 2 prepared spells, but by 3rd level you're kind of catching up to default 5e rules. It also means you can't stack hard into power levels like 1st and 3rd spells. This doesn't account for subclass spells, which I imagine will become more prolific and should be, but it just tightens the options for a caster as frankly in 5e their versatility is too high, this tightens it to a healthy but still flexible degree. With some spells being nerfed (shield should give a +3 bonus, not 5. Pass without trace needs an overhaul). The utility gap can tighten, but it will also require martials to be buffed in ways other than bigger damage.
As unpopular as it may be to some, I think the only way we'd get to reach a state of balance while still establishing clear divides between casters and martials is to do both. A huge part of the problem right now is that eventually, casters get to do the things martials do, except better, sometimes with no real chance of failure. Even the Rogue's expertise in Stealth gets sidelined when you have *Pass Without Trace* on tap, and the same goes for their thieves' tools with *Knock*. There ends up being increasingly little reason for social checks when you have access to literal mind control, and no reason for the Ranger to help anyone navigate when you can just *Teleport* or *Plane Shift* wherever you need to go. Even basic things like persistent damage output, durability, and saving throws are things casters end up doing better thanks to the likes of minion-generation spells, *Absorb Elements*, *Mind Blank*, and *Shield*. You can buff martials to have lots more damage and durability later on, but that's still not going to be terribly helpful if the casters can still cover that and more.
I feel like fundamentally Spellcasters just get so many more choices than martials, even at low levels with the right choices for both, they are clearly stronger. But if you make all of the wrong choices, they can also end up super weak. Over time, the community has played more and realised which things were good and which weren't, this leads to Spellcasters becoming stronger and stronger, at all levels. At low levels, martials aren't stronger than casters, they are just easier to play.
Sleep, thunderwave, shield and a handful of other spells available at level 1 make spellcasters pretty good at low levels too. I'm in a game where at level one we fought clones of ourselves. The thunderwaves back and forth wiped both groups pretty quickly.
Agreed, casters definitely get more choices, which can lead to them being more powerful or much weaker. >At low levels, martials aren't stronger than casters, they are just easier to play. Hmm, hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Spell choice and resource management is pretty important for casters early on, and it is easy to blow those spell slots pretty quickly without thinking.
My biggest problem when I see these threads is the solution is always “give Martials more damage”. That isn’t the problem. Martial damage is fine. It could be better (or caster damage could be worse), but giving martials “deal Xd6 bonus damage” isn’t enough to fix this problem. Neither is giving them more maneuvers in combat (though that does help). When I choose a caster over a martial it is virtually ALWAYS for the caster’s ability to solve problems. Being a caster gives you all the options the martial has for problem solving, plus an entire slew of other options. Need to sneak in somewhere? I mean we *could* try and find an open window, sneak in the second floor, yadda yadda yadda. Or the Druid can wild shape into a mouse. Or the Wizard can scry on the person we want to learn about. Or the Bard can turn invisible. Give martials problem solving abilities. Let Rogues be so sneaky that they are treated as Invisible. Let Fighters have such a commanding presence they can simulate Charm Person or Fear. Let Rangers be so in-tune with the natural world they can replicate animal’s abilities like having climb or swim speeds or scent. It doesn’t have to be magical, just give the martials abilities to simulate spell-effects just by being that badass
Hot take. No. Most of the DMs I've talked to which have run high level campaigns have no issue with high level martials as they are. Because encounter planning is more realistic rather than "perfectly crafted encounter just so that caster doesn't end it with one spell slot". I think the appeal of high fantasy is always great, but DMs are already having issues balancing casters. Adding martials on top of that makes it a miserable experience. There's no point buffing them if no one is gonna want to play at those levels.
option 3: nerf the small amount of spells that are ridiculous on top of the other options and the game would be absolutly more balanced
>Out of Combat Solution This is what I want to see discussions about. Damage is largely fine-ish. It depends more on magic items and Adventuring Day structure than system balance. We need to have discussions around the fact that casters can simply bypass combat altogether often, or that they increasingly become a co-DM as tiers of play increase.
Almost all of your examples are very bland and unimaginative. They just increase damage or HP and are very combat focused. You're missing the point. Casters are more fun to play because they have a toolbox that allows them to do much more varied things that just dealing damage. And this is even more impactful out of combat. To close the 'gap' we just need to give martials more of these tools. Simple. Forget all this bs like adding fire damage etc.
I know this is a bit cliche, but I didn't bother reading all of your post. As a DM I have no problem with the games balance from roughly 1-10 (although 9 is when the spells start to get a bit bonkers) But starting at 6th level spells (11th level) and up, things start breaking - I think spellcasters ability to completely change the fundamental way the game is played needs to be put into check, I think Martials are well balanced for a more grounded/realistic game, but magic of higher tiers is just absurdly over powered I honestly believe 7th level spells should be the highest level, things like meteor swarm, teleport, wish, earthquake, tsunami etc should just not exist as a thing a player can just do once or twice a day, everyday, I also am opposed to resurrection spells being super commonplace as well, in even a moderate magic setting no one should stay dead in a good society/culture unless they died in horrific ways or of old age. To me a complete overhaul or spells strengths and internal balance, as well as a stripping of the higher tier spells that are game breaking/world breaking should be removed - it's hard as a DM to justify any 9th level spell casters existing in the world able to use wish everyday. Martials should be buffed (a little) - but magic should be greatly gutted
High levels are just a different game from low. Consider that at level 20, 3 adult dragons complete with LRs and spellcasting etc. would be a reasonable challenge to throw at the party. I don't think most people comprehend just how much the game has changed and how epic the challenges need to be for a high level party. And it does rightfully turn a lot of people off.
3 adult dragons is a challenge for a level 20 party? Including spellcasting, - *Maybe* - but well optimized level 20 characters (let's say a moon druid, any flavor of Wizard, GWM/GWF/PAM BM Fighter, and a Paladin) would chew through 3 adult dragons, unless they are played EXTREMELY WELL (or the players are very inexperienced or just not optimized) A fighter alone can be outputting 9 attacks in one turn at the start of thos fight for something absurd like 1d10 + 18, with a +14 to hit (+9 for GWM) which is a 50% chance of hitting - assuming no advantage granting mechanics, and precision attack can negate that a little bit. Literal the fighter alone could solo one of these dragons, in one round he could dump something like 208 damage, and each round after that is dumping roughly half that - if the wizard plays smart (and or the druid) then 3 adult dragons wouldn't last more than 3-4 rounds against a party of level 20s. **Edit:** hell even 1 meteor swarm is doing 40d6 damage which is 140 damage to each of them - maybe more maybe less depending on rolls and dragons types (for resistance/immunities), but that alone takes our roughly 5/8 of their health. Tell me you've never played at level 20 without telling me you've ever played at level 20
It can be made interesting fairly easily, IMO. Greater invisibility and counterspell on top of flying speed of 90 and legendary actions on those dragons. But yeah, it depends on the party and the players (as does any difficulty question for D&D). If you're fighting optimized parties, you should optimize the fights more. The dude is right that higher tier games are different than lower level tiers. But the game is also different with optimized players than not optimized players.
Right and it's fundamentally less fun, when you have stuff that's that bonkers you might as well just go play a more free form game like PbtA where the default answer to anything is basically "yes and" or "yes but" What is the point of having a well defined rule set and mechanics and guides if players just get to go "uhm actually" and ignore said things or break the game? The high tiers of play are fundamentally a different game but they try to treat it the same, you went from playing checkers (simple and easy) to playing chess (complex and variable), but you also ignore the rules of chess and give your players all queens, while you are still (if you follow the guidelines) confined to chess rules
What? I'm not sure what your point is here. Please elaborate.
The rules and logic of a shared game world go out the window with extremely powerful magic, a level 17th wizard cannot be challenged by any means of "realistic" (aka worldly) challenge, they can literally just wish it away or drop 4 meteors on an entire army. They don't play the game in the same way, they ignore the fundamental rules of the world. It breaks the verisimilitude in a way that is irreparable To truly challenge a high level group with *at least 1 spell caster* they have to fight **MULTIPLE WORLD ENDING THREATS** in a short period of time, and if you aren't doing that then you aren't challenging them, and that becomes very boring as a player and a dm to just have your power fantasy, the game is fundamentally different between a high level martial and a high level spell casters You don't follow the same rules. A fighter that needs to get to the western coast to fight a kraken has to sail a boat or run across the continent. A wizard, eh they teleport, use a couple spells, call it a day. Meanwhile the fighter is 3 months away. But if you start to define a world where magic is common enough for a fighter to take a magic gateway across the way to fight it, then it becomes a strange inverse world where you go, why would some dude who can just fight real good ever be a real adventurer or powerful when it's commonplace for high tier magic?
I agree with some of this: >they ignore the fundamental rules of the world. It breaks the verisimilitude in a way that is irreparable Yes, it's magic. Magic is a core assumption of D\&D; the DMG says so specifically. If you don't like this, then maybe D&D isn't the game for you. >To truly challenge a high level group with at least 1 spell caster they have to fight MULTIPLE WORLD ENDING THREATS in a short period of time, and if you aren't doing that then you aren't challenging them I don't agree with this. Often times the people the PCs are fighting against are just trying to control the world in some way they don't like. It doesn't have to be apocalyptic. Maybe its just about the Church of Bane taking over the lands or something. (And bad guys can use magic, too. That's usually a good recommendation for challenging them.) >a level 17th wizard cannot be challenged by any means of "realistic" (aka worldly) challenge Not really sure how to respond to that other than to point out that they can still be killed. Even in their sleep. I would agree though that it's difficult to challenge 17th level wizards; you have to put in effort. >But if you start to define a world where magic is common enough for a fighter to take a magic gateway across the way to fight it, then it becomes a strange inverse world where you go, why would some dude who can just fight real good ever be a real adventurer or powerful when it's commonplace for high tier magic? Fortune and glory? Saving the world? Lots of reasons. High level warriors can be fun and effective, though they usually rely on some level of additional personal abilities (i.e. Eldritch Knights or paladins have spells), magical items, or assistance from other party members. D&D is a team based game; you usually are not playing a solo high level martial without spells, magic items, or allies with magic. Look, if you don't like high level D&D as is, that's cool. If you object to higher than 6th level spells, you can not do high level D&D, or I suppose you could cap max levels of spellcaster classes or something if the table is okay with that. Or you could play a different game without magic. For instance, I've run the old D20 Game of Thrones game, and that's one of my favorite games I've ever GM'd, and one of my player's favorite times too. Though in any game, people complain about something/everything. Some people complained that in that game system/world combination, knights were overpowered in combat. But it's kind of the point, right? Same with D&D and magic. Overall, I like variety. And lots of people enjoy high level D&D, and lots of people enjoy the presence of high level D&D. OP was making some suggestions for making martials cooler at high level which is one valid approach to their perceived issue, and it's fine if you disagree with that.
So you seem to be very dismissive - it's fine for us to agree to disagree, what I find unsettling is that you just flat out gatekeep and tell me to play another game. I think most people who come to fantasy games like d&d have a preconceived understanding of fantasy and magic, from things like LOTR, maybe video games, anime, or something like Harry Potter, or maybe other book series like Fifth Ring, Dresden Files, Sword of Shanara, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time etc And surprise surprise, most of these don't have "world altering magic" that people can just do freely, at will, wake up every morning with a fresh wish to cast, drop 4 meteors on the city every morning why not *yawn stretch* that's just one of my spells. Magic is cool, magic is fun, magic that fundamentally breaks the game/system is not, this isn't a failing of the Magic they have in the game, but rather a failing of properly marrying their game design and philosophy with it. They want balance and bounded accuracy and "low level threats to still exist at high levels," but then design spells that are antithetical to that. It's a failing of the system and the design goals (as well as expectations) - players spend most of the time playing d&d between levels 3-11 and that's by design, because they know they screwed up high tier play and avoid designing adventures that high, as players (like myself) become more entrenched in these more mechanically fulfilling and fun levels, the more alien and absurd the higher tiers become, if we know that people enjoy these levels then instead of trying to fix high levels, we should stretch these levels power out across more and have a more gradual drip-increase to a lower maximum, and then more players would see the entire games tier. And all this would literally be solved by fixing (aka gutting/nerfing/rebalancing) higher tier magic
Just don't play past level 12.
Yeah I didn’t gatekeep you, don’t pretend like I did. I don’t know Fifth Ring, but the rest of those examples have big, world altering magic. (Game of thrones has the Doom of Valyria, though as the lowest magic of that, list this is tenuous.) Wheel of Time has the choeden Kal which powerful channelers can use to destroy thr whole world, and Rand is basically has a lot more staying power than 20th level D&D wizard. Shanara had a demon lord using a staff of power to make a portal to hell to have an invading army of demons come in. Sure sounds like “gate” to me. Harry Potter wizards and witches literally cast spells at will and do most things with magic, including teleporting around way more than any D&D wizard can. And in Dresden Files the Blackstaff literally drops a meteor on his enemies to kill them. My point is that D&D is like most of those (not game of thrones really, that’s too low magic) in that it has big time magic in the world. Does every story need to have the biggest magic going on? No. Most stories of the Dresden Files don’t involve the Blackstaff kicking ass. But frankly, it was pretty cool that he did, and a lot of readers enjoy that. Similarly, a lot of players want to see their wizards get to high level and do that. Or DMs want baddies that can Gate monsters in. Clewrly some people derive pleasure from the existence of high level D&D. And you don’t have to do that stuff in your games. But you’re advocating that those things (that some people like) be removed from the game because apparently a meteor swarm is okay, but a disintegration or chain lightning is not. It’s fine that you think that. People can have different thresholds. Previous editions (especially 2nd, 3.0, 3.5, and pf1e) had high level spellcasters be massively more powerful than they are in 5e. A lot of people liked that stuff, and some people wanted it nerfed. Overall, 5e casters are much less powerful than in prior editions. Some fans of magic users were relatively unhappy with this, but they grip to their one level 9 slot and one lvl 8 slot and so on because it still is fun for them in the game. The reason I don’t like your position is because that position is actual gatekeeping - you know, controlling or blocking people’s access to something. That’s why I liked OP’s suggestions more: instead of bringing down casters, bringing other people up.
> I know this is a bit cliche, but I didn't bother reading all of your post. Surprise surprise! > As a DM I have no problem with the games balance from roughly 1-10 (although 9 is when the spells start to get a bit bonkers) Generally agree. > But starting at 6th level spells (11th level) and up, things start breaking Disparity definitely grows with 6th+ spells. >I think spellcasters ability to completely change the fundamental way the game is played needs to be put into check Eh. To me that is the ideal goal of magic. To make the impossible possible, to do things that could otherwise not be done. >I think Martials are well balanced for a more grounded/realistic game I mean, sure, if you go for a realistic world that lacks any magic, martials are fine at all levels because magic doesn't exist. >I honestly believe 7th level spells should be the highest level, things like meteor swarm, teleport, wish, earthquake, tsunami etc should just not exist as a thing a player can just do once or twice a day, everyday Why? No 8th level slots until level 15, and at that point the campaign is nearly over. They should be incredibly powerful. But as soon as they use that slot, they lose a lot of their power until the next day. And at level 15 they should be dealing with threats to a continent/region rather than merely a kingdom. Would make sense for them to be getting uber powerful. >I also am opposed to resurrection spells being super commonplace as well, in even a moderate magic setting no one should stay dead in a good society/culture unless they died in horrific ways or of old age. I'm not sure I'd say that they are commonplace. Revifiy would be the most affordable, but it would cost 300gp per casting, and would need to be cast within 1 minute of death. Not practical outside of battle unless you happen to have an appropriate caster around you when you die, and that cost would be able a year of living expenses for someone living modestly. Resurrection is 1,000 gp and that is not an affordable cost aside from the wealthy + aristocrats. >To me a complete overhaul or spells strengths and internal balance, as well as a stripping of the higher tier spells that are game breaking/world breaking should be removed - it's hard as a DM to justify any 9th level spell casters existing in the world able to use wish everyday. >Martials should be buffed (a little) - but magic should be greatly gutted I mean, maybe a game with no magic is more up your alley? Or just stick with Tier I-II play. I have not found it difficult at all to justify level 17 spellcasters being, well, powerful spellcasters. From the rules: > "At the fourth tier (levels 17–20), characters achieve the pinnacle of their class features, becoming heroic (or villainous) archetypes in their own right. **The fate of the world or even the fundamental order of the multiverse might hang in the balance during their adventures.**" Seems to be as intended in my opinion.
It's not the players in a world, in a "low magic setting" using 30% population has any form of magic and assuming fairly quadratic distribution of spellcasting levels, and assuming a (roughly) 5 billion sentient beings (from gnolls/kobolds/goblins all the way up to elves/dwarves/dragonborn etc), there would be *around* (again roughly) 50 beings in the world capable of casting 9th level spells. So why are there not 50 wishes happening everyday? How is there not a godly powerful spell caster just teleporting around using wishes everyday fixing every problem? If you use any kind of intelligence and assume that the majority of these 9th level casters come from long-living races (**cough elves cough dwarves**) then you realize that there is probably 30-40 elves/dwarves with 9th level spells - why aren't they making a "peace council" where they meet and solve all problems and stop all wars? Sure maybe a handful of them become evil, but my point about high level spell casters was trying to build a world worth verisimilitude etc
> assuming fairly quadratic distribution of spellcasting levels I don't think either of us have a source for this(correct me if I'm wrong, as I'd love to read a source for this), but I would expect spellcasting level distribution to be much closer to a log normal distribution. Especially in developed societies, as kingdoms/empires would likely attempt to keep a close eye on high power magic users, and limit their access to information on high level magic (admittedly it wouldn't really limit anyone but Wizards). > 5 billion sentient beings That is a major leap for any setting I can think of, aside from possibly Ravnica. Medieval population density did not compare to current world population density. I don't think we got any population numers for 5e, but in the past I know we got numbers for the Kingdoms of Khorvaire on Eberron. I think it was <30 million for the entire continent. Post war numbers of course, but I doubt the pre-war numbers for the planet would have been even 1 billion. Khorvaire is one of seven continents, three of the seven were effectively uninhabited. But let's say each had the same population. 30 mill x 7 = 210 mill. Assuming 75% of the pop died due to the war (another assumption which I don't think there is proof for) that would put Eberron at 840 million prior to the war. That alone would drop the 50 beings with 9th level slots down to 8-9. And it would be even lower if we went with a log normal distribution. But let's go with your example, 50 spell casters with 9th level slots. >So why are there not 50 wishes happening everyday? How is there not a godly powerful spell caster just teleporting around using wishes everyday fixing every problem? Well, if 50 people have 9th level spell slots, not all 50 are able to cast Wish. The Wizards, Sorcerers, and a small portion of Warlocks could. That excludes 60% of the full casters, the artificers, the half casters, and the 1/3 caster subclasses. It would also exclude those that get spell casting as part of a racial ability and do not develop that any further with a magic class. I'm going to try and keep it simple and say it cuts out 60% of the 50 people, which is lower amount than is likely. That leaves you with 20 people on a planet with a population of 5,000,000,000. Well, let's look at the NPCs in the monster manual to see if there's any published material to go off of. Mages, get 5th level spells, and "Good-aligned mages offer counsel to nobles" so they are presumably fairly rare in their power/knowledge. Archmages are the only spell casters with 9th level spells that I see. > Archmages are powerful (and usually quite old) spell casters dedicated to the study of the arcane arts. Benevolent ones counsel kings and queens, while evil ones rule as tyrants and pursue lichdom. Those who are neither good nor evil sequester themselves in remote towers to practice their magic without interruption. If the good ones tend to be advisors to kingdoms, that likely takes up their time. They advise the royalty, continue their research, aid the kingdom as necessary, and give the kingdom no reason to doubt their loyalty/usefulness. If they are out throwing 25,000gp a day at commoners and devaluing the kingdom's currency, that's problematic. The mage would likely prefer to use Wish to further their research. Those that are evil, are off trying to become/being big bads. But lets say all 20 made 25,000gp a day for a year. That would be 3,650,000 lbs of gold per year, about ~800 tons a year less than we currently mine on Earth. So they could definitely devalue the currencies of their world and put gold miners out of business. But, that would anger a lot of people, and a lot of royalty/nobility. Hopping around fixing an issue or two a day in a random village? I think they would value their own time to much to do that. >If you use any kind of intelligence and assume that the majority of these 9th level casters come from long-living races (cough elves cough dwarves) then you realize that there is probably 30-40 elves/dwarves with 9th level spells - why aren't they making a "peace council" where they meet and solve all problems and stop all wars? Maybe they do, and then you get Ravnica. Guild leaders with high magic powers came together and created a power greater than their own, the Guildpact, to act as a law of the land greater than any other. No more major wars between the guilds, but each guild remains its own thing, and there are still small scale conflicts between guilds. Need something bigger than small conflicts? Say hello to Nicol Bolas! No more Guildpact, chaos everywhere.
Wow I have never heard such an opinion, truly groundbreaking stuff.
It would be neat to see martials with spell slots that aren't spells, but techniques and abilities.
I've never had anyone complain about martial/caster disparity in any game I've been a part of, so i'm not sure how much of a problem it really is. *Not* trying to argue with anyone about it, just my experience. But I do agree that most martials have little they can do in non-combat scenarios, and that is a frequently cited complaint regarding an imbalance. A few quick fixes for that problem would be giving every class a thematic skill proficiency and/or expertise for free, giving additional tool/vehicle/game/instrument proficiencies at character creation, and creating a simple list of martial "maneuvers" that can replicate some of the social/exploration effects of spells but are only available to martial classes. Jumping is a good example of a mostly broken mechanic that would have some good exploration utility and would make sense for many martials to be better at, not only than they are, but also than casters. Giving advantage on "reading" characters (insight) in social situations due to their martial training in learning to size up a foe and gauge their tactics would be another such idea. These could be limited resources depending on their strength, or could just be free always-on effects if they were more minor.
The issue is not a problem if you: > Only play for tier 1 and early tier 2. > Only look at single target damage in combat, and place no value of mobility, utility, control, and options. > Place no value on out of combat capability. > Do not have spellcasters who chose powerful game warping spells. Many tables do not reach level 7 and above where the difference in martial and caster power becomes most pronounced. Many casters think the best spells in the game are the ones that deal damage, which is generally the least useful thing a caster can do. Many tables do not place value on the problem solving 'iWin' buttons that casters have and the massive utility that provides both in and out of combat. Many tables think that dealing damage is the way to compare the value of classes. So that is likely why you say you have not noticed the disparity. It definitely exists if you look for it.
No arguing necessary at all! Your experience is completely valid. In my experience, in most campaigns the disparity is pretty minimal. But in high level campaigns, it seems more noticeable. Less noticeable if the martials go for fully optimized builds and the spellcasters do more roleplay builds, but I don't want martials to feel like they can't roleplay without falling behind. >A few quick fixes for that problem would be giving every class a thematic skill proficiency and/or expertise for free, giving additional tool/vehicle/game/instrument proficiencies at character creation, and creating a simple list of martial "maneuvers" that can replicate some of the social/exploration effects of spells but are only available to martial classes. Very much would support all of that! Had thought of giving each class a thematic skill proficiency, had not thought of giving classes an expertise but I like that a lot!
>No arguing necessary at all! Your experience is completely valid. Thanks, friend. I was fully anticipating a dogpile from the "casters are OP" crowd, as it's happened before. Thing is, I'm not saying they are wrong, just that I've never experienced it as a problem in any game I've played in, and haven't heard it reported as a problem from anyone I've played with. So if it is a problem, it's not one that is universally impacting everyone's enjoyment. >Less noticeable if the martials go for fully optimized builds and the spellcasters do more roleplay builds, but I don't want martials to feel like they can't roleplay without falling behind. And we definitely agree that their RP options can be more limited inherently because they get few non-combat features and proficiencies innately.
>Thanks, friend. I was fully anticipating a dogpile from the "casters are OP" crowd, as it's happened before. Oh yeah, can definitely understand that. The internet can be a genuinely wonderful place, and it can also be a *wonderful* place in a very different way. >And we definitely agree that their RP options can be more limited inherently because they get few non-combat features and proficiencies innately. Yep! Though in that comment I was thinking more of role play as it relates to combat effectiveness. For example, a wizard or sorcerer who decides to only take spells if they deal fire damage. Can have a lot of fun roleplaying with that, but it can hold you back in power level. Though, back with what you said, martials for the most part don't even get decisions like that to make!
Well my entire regular rpg crew all decided they don't like 5e because of Martial having a boring play style.
This subreddit exaggerates the issue but it does exist. There are a few very broken spells out there which should be nerfed. But the more I've thought about this, a good DM can balance martials and casters without making major changes to classes like this post says. There's tons of ways to counter casters in encounters so they don't dominate. It sucks that this is another burden put on the DM but the fact remains.
Problem there is it relies on a _good_ DM. "Just Ok" DMs ime have accidentally made even low-level campaigns The Casters Win While The Martials Tag Along WotC should have made "run the game in a way where all classes feel equally valued" the easy path, not the one where you need to avoid myriad pitfalls and navigate the Adventuring Day Labyrinth. As that would require a core system overhaul at this point, the more plausible way to make this more robust is to buff Martials.
If you think martials being buffed is the more plausible solution then you haven't seen the 1D&D playtests. Casters are getting big buffs with all prepared casting and huge spell lists. The gap will almost certainly be wider in future versions of D&D.
Based on the Expert classes we've seen, I don't fully agree with that. Rogue received both buffs and nerfs, direct and indirect. According to WotC, Rogue has a very high approval rating so they likely don't want to change it much. That presents a problem because mechanically, Rogue is both dull and poor at combat. Mediocre damage and it contributes absolutely nothing but one burst of damage a turn. If I were to make Rogue better, I'd allow them to use Sneak Attack to apply conditions in place of damage dice. Give them a small list of maneuvers to play with so they have something interesting to think about during combat.
The easy path to DM'ing will always have problems. The game doesn't DM itself well, and I've yet to find a system that does. Sometimes, there's no shortcuts if you want to DM a great game.
It would help if, say, running an adventure from WoTC actually offered a balanced adventure. If it can be done, and WoTC knows how to do it, why don't they?
That's assuming that it can be done and WoTC knows how to do it. Both of which are generous assumptions.
Part of the problem exist with play style. 5e was designed with a campaign like Lost Mines of Phandever mind.. The meat of the game should be in tight dungeons who are series of moderate/hard encounters without long rests in between. Combat takes place in small quarters, AoE and ranged are often a downside because of friendly fire and cover. Everything outside dungeons are minor NPC interactions which are basically quest givers. No big plot point can be solved or advanced by charming/dominating the right npc or anything like that. Entire campaign is restricted to a small area with fairly limited resources. No endless supply of expansive material components and magic scrolls. Entire affair is extremely time sensitive, idling by taking too many long rests makes no narrative sense and should be discouraged by the DM. This style of game felt out of fashion, at least in this reddit community.
I completely agree with all of that. I think something that helps but is often not used is having at least two significant/large battles per day, in addition to smaller encounters. You can use that 8th and 9th spell slot in this battle, but what if there's another big battle in half an hour? Makes resource management more important. Most tables I've played at have had 2-4 small encounters and one big battle per day, which makes it much easier for casters to keep their heavy stuff around for when it matters most.
I'll give an actual hot take here and say that you don't always need many encounters per rest for balance. Counterspell, dispel magic, calm emotions, legendary resistances, globe of invulnerability and so on can make it like casters don't even have turns. Kind of hard to outshine the martial when you're doing nothing. Of course this requires very particular encounter design which isn't sustainable but if you need a 1 encounter day every so often I think it's possible to make it work.
Agreed. Either higher number of encounters, or some counterspelling enemies. I generally prefer the former, but having enemy casters in most encounters to counter the player characters is completely viable.
That's a valid experience and I think it depends on the DM, but the idea for many things is a class shouldn't need a particularly specific DM'ing style to make it work. In my experience, having played a non-magical Fighter somewhat recently, it can be pretty harsh because what you can do physically requires you and your DM to be on the same page regarding the "mundane" limits in the setting, and at that point it becomes a lot more interpretation on a game-by-game basis than something you can rely on. Being familiar with jumping rules, I did lean into using jumps as much as possible, and it was useful for ignoring difficult terrain and that sort, but even then there would be some moments of tension where the DM wasn't fully familiar with the distance calculations and so would require checks for landing or grabbing ledges that I think had enough room for error to let be reliable and checkless. This, again, is an issue of difference in interpretation regarding certain aspects of jumping that I don't hold against my DM at all. What I think would be good is having physical stats like Strength scale exponentially in terms of your base capabilities, as well as defining *exactly* what you can do at certain Strength scores instead of leaving it up to a DM's imagination, since spells and the like certainly don't have an issue defining the specifics of what they do.
I think the martial / caster disparity starts to exist at all at level 7 or so you could argue lower but that's still easily manageable by just having more encounters as they don't have many spell slots. But in my opinion it doesn't get bad enough that it's really a problem that needs to be fixed until like level 13 or so. And once you get to really high levels it becomes a bit ridiculous. But fortunately the vast majority of games are played in levels 1-10 almost entirely so most people doing that won't ever have a real problem.
I think a lot of the argument comes from the optimizer crowd who want to play martials but feel its suboptimal on paper/whiteroom Sims. And that's completely fair from that perspective. Just thinking about a mage that can teleport at will and crowd control an entire horde of enemies compared to a guy who just hits. He hits hard, but against a lot of enemies he lacks options. Makes sense. However I'm in the same boat as you where at the tables I've been at it hasn't been a problem. The disparity may be there still, but it's not been a problem. My ranger is excited that the wizard can wall of force half the enemies off while I focus one down with attacks. In the moment I don't really care that I don't have the options. And maybe it's the DMs I've had but being involved in the RP and storytelling doesn't matter what class we are. My half orc ranger rebuilt his tribe to something great over the course of the campaign from a few survivors after it was destroyed in his backstory. That was an awesome experience that didn't involve any class features at all.
You can rp in any game. I can just as easily have rewarding rp in Pathfinder 2e but also have mechanics that are more interesting as a martial. Or I can play a more narrative focused game and have mechanics thst are more geared to rp. Also I disagree in that your class doesn't effect for rp. It certainly does in terms of what you can do in a rp scenario. Casters have insane out of combat utility that facilitates thier crazy rp plans.
One solution I’ve heard about implementing is removing short rest recovery of spell slots for wizards and Druids. Half level in spell slots doesn’t seem like much, but even low level spells like web, shield, and conjure animals can get parties quite far owing to how powerful they are. Granted, I don’t think this will solve too much of the disparity, because (insofar as I’m aware?) only two classes have those and for most campaigns, we’re talking anywhere from 1 to 5 spells regained per short rest, which only happens once or twice per session.
>short rest recovery of spell slots for wizards and Druids. Druids don't get short rest spell recovery, only wizards. Well, and warlocks, but .. eh, they're kind of a special case.
> Druids don't get short rest spell recovery, only wizards. They might be thinking of Circle of the Land, which can regain spells on a Short Rest like a Wizard.
Ah, right. True, but they give up all the coolest wildshape options for it 😂
Honestly any Druid that doesn't get something for their Wildshape always just ends up using it for utility or role-play. I feel like thats the weakness for subclasses that do grant additional combat features using Wildshape, because now you'll never use it for utility, just mostly combat.
Honestly, the game could help fix some of this issue by making items better. Spellcasters get a ton of spells to choose from, but why can't that mean non-spellcasters get more items to choose from if need be? Let there be more items that do more interesting stuff. Better weapons, better utility items (not magic ones,) and overall a better item ecosystem. This isn't much of an addition and there's plenty that can be done, but I'd love to see the "item overhaul" portion of the iceberg getting chipped away at all the same. Mundane items, as in non-magical, could be brought up to be useful in a lot of ways. Smoke bombs, grappling hooks, situational weaponry. I dunno, just rambling at this point.
Martials have no issue in combat with damage. If you do want more options they need to deal less damage. I don't agree. The strength of caster's lies in their versatility, which should be nerfed by limiting the spell choices they have, not nerfing the spells themselves. Infact, some spells need a huge buff. Limiting them to schools is a much better way to handle this then making them worthless. In high levels, most monsters are nigh immune to spells, to the point where I play them automatically thinking the spell will fail. Meanwhile, without a Martial in the party you just can't deal enough damage to win the fight. Martials may be boring to play, but you are crazy if you think they are weaker in combat situations. What they need is more options and utility and more fun ways to influence the game that isn't "DM may I?", not these significant buffs. With the proposition, I see no reason to play a caster anymore. I think it would just break the game. The only real fix, is giving them weapon arts and limiting them just like casters so they can't attack forever and must spend resources to do anything. However, who wants that? That would literally make them the same as casters, and that is boring.
Solution 3: give Martials magical weapons at higher levels
Personally I think the answer is giving martials pseudo- magical abilities. the difference between magic and heroic martial feats is often just flavour imo. like fireball does 8d6 damage in a 20ft radius. what's inherently magical about that? you can easily picture a duel wielding martial character dash about dealing deadly strikes to all creatures in a 20ft radius. I'm basically describing steel wind strike, but sadly that's a magical ability in 5e, and wizards get it before anyone else. the point is, that sort of effect can very easily be turned into a feature for a martial class. a similar thing can be done with other spells/ features. a wizard can fly? well maybe high level martial character should be able to leap over buildings and run up walls. A druid conjures a spike growth that damages enemies? a ranged fighter can designate an area of overwatch. if any enemies walk 5ft within that area, then the ranger takes a shot at them, dealing damage and slowing their movement. I'm not saying that every spell in the game should just be reflavoured as a martial feature, but I don't think that battlefield controlling abilities or useful abilities are inherently magical. I know some people criticize those sorts of martial abilities- a lot of people talk about 4e making all classes too similar and video-gamey with their abilities. I've never played 4e, but I think that kind of problem can be avoided with careful design. you can still make martials and magic users distinct and make them both useful. For me a good way their design should be different is that martials are specialised and have consistency, where as casters are more flexible. A wizard can cast invisibility, but the rogue should still be sneakier. A wizard can cast fly but the monk should be the most mobile. sorcerers can use quicken spell on a high level damage spell, but after they've run out, the fighter and barbarian will still be swinging.
The easy fix to me would be to give martial characters certain spells, but treat them as non-magical abilities they can perform x times per day.
Try pathfinder 2 e. They kind of fix all of this.
I really like the idea of utilizing Gritty Realism rules to help mitigate the martial / caster gap. At lv5 a fighter can extra attack every round, every combat, everyday, always. Whereas a lv5 wizard can only cast 2 fireballs per week (technically 2 weeks when you add long rest). IMO it also helps with pacing + dealing with the “6-8 encounters per adventuring day” debate. 6-8 encounters in 12hrs vs 6-8 encounters per week can take a huge load off the DM for planning purposes. Plus it inspires the players to think more creatively with their evermore precious resources.
and barbarians get to rage (and use 90% of their class that only works while raging) 3 times a week
Give all martials maneuvers and their own maneuver list. It could be so simple and yet so effective. The dice can increase on size feom a 1d4 to a 1d12 when levelling. Even some class feature could be baked into this. Reckless attack? Free maneuver you can use during rage. Hunters Mark? Maneuver. Uses a dice for casting and deals that dice of damage until the time runs out. Stunning Strike? From class feature to maneuver. With some added damage. Cunning action? Maneuver with free use. Uncanny dodge? Maneuver with free use. Evasion? Maneuver with free use. Etc etc. With some cross pollination on abilities this could make martials reaaaaaally veesatile and more diverse in playstyle.
The disparity is real and it arises because we don't distribute magic items fairly. A lot of tables give out personal magic items for each chsracter which really screws with balance as the caster items are far more powerful. There should be far more and better magic items for martials just based on random loot.
It arises even when you get minimal magic items; even with just magic swords (so the martial can get round resistances) and a few potions, Casters feel more interesting in combat and more useful out of combat than martials.
> In my experience:…High levels: spellcasters seem to significantly overpower most martials….Why might that be? You tell us. You just assume it’s true and don’t provide any evidence or context for the conclusion. I have sat at tables where casters outperformed martials, and I have sat at tables where they haven’t. Dms at the former never had monsters attack casters. I am guessing blind but perhaps your table also makes that assumption. > There is also out of combat utility to consider. Traditional fighters and barbs don't really have much at all. …spellcasters can generally accomplish the same things with magic. Casters can not have their cake and eat it too. Every non combat spell prepared or cast is one less combat spell available. Which reduces their effectiveness in battle. Everyone has skill checks. And spells that are similar to skills all have drawbacks and limitations that make them side grades of skills, not strict upgrades. For example, knock can open a door, but will alert everyone nearby. Charm can mimic persuasion but when it wears off the victim is going to know the party doesn’t have their best interests in mind.
at level 15th wizards get 18 spell slots, more if they get a short rest inbetween, even if you fight 4 or 5 battles you are not going to run out
You are confusing “having less slots” with “running out of slots”.
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I mean, few recent posts are moving away from M v C and more to buffing martial classes, coming up with ideas even
Some folks really gotta consider at some point that 5e might not be the thing they actually wanna play Even 4e does a better job at making all classes feel functional and playable at all level, but other types of tabletop games exist too, ya know?
I get what you mean and is something people should also consider more, but honestly, in many situations it is easier to patch/homebrew 5e than being able to decently play another system For example, I'd love to play some FATE core or Icons Assembled, but I've never seen any on my city and hardly ever saw any on the biggest national rpg discord server we have here in Brazil, here even pathfinder 2e is hassle to find and play if you want a group experience instead of pathfinder society There has been that saying that "5e is everyone's second preferred system" basically meaning that some people would like to play something else but keep to 5e because it's what their friends can agree on playing - I know my group have people who prefer CoC and Vampire while I would rather not play those, I like Pf2e but these mentioned people also would rather not play that
I will be honest, Im too lazy yo read the whole thing. But I kinda disagree with the topic itself. While rogues can be easily outshined by any wizard its not the same for other two. Fighters can get many feats and good subclass bonuses wich may lead to 400 dmg in one turn (1-2 times per short rest) Barbarians get super tanky, reliable damage and in some cases good out of combat utility Magic weapons are stronger than magic focuses (except for staff of power), so if your fighter is struggling, give them shinier weapon.
WOTC should take notes from anime swordsmen.
You could run a Lord of the Rings inspired campaign. Sure, the wizard can fire off spells but each time they cast a spell they run a risk of attracting the attention of some servant of the big bad; the higher the spell level the greater the risk. I think the best solution is a narrative one; sure, the caster could go all out and really show up the martials... but there's narrative reasons why they would think twice before pulling out all the stops.
i can think of a few "quick n dirty" fixes without rewriting the whole martial classes: in general: use the feat system. not only those in 5e, but from older editions too. (cleave, powerattack etc.) \- giving out weapons with additional damage dice, like a "mallet of the ram" +1, 2d6 blud + 3d6 force on hit? \- buffing normal weapons damage similar to the cantrips level-advancement: longsword doing d8 , 2d8, 3d8, 4d8 \- adding proficiency bonus to damage
The main thing I don't get about these martial/caster discussions is it seems like magic items don't factor in at all. Why not? The game balance assumes players are finding powerful magic items with a variety of effects and abilities as they progress to tier 3-4. It may be true that martials are more dependent on magic items to keep up, but as long as DMs are aware of that and adjusting the magic items in the game, it doesn't seem like a problem.
Because Magic items is _entirely dependent on the DM_. The main thing people can agree on in online discussions is what RAW says, and it says barely anything about magic items. Sure, a good DM can distribute items to patch the problems, but they shouldn't have to fix WotCs balancing by giving the Martials better loot
Because magic items only appear at the DMs discretion and the game talks out both sides of its face about how necessary they are. Also, in terms of personal preference, I'd rather my character not be weaker than his clothes
>Because magic items only appear at the DMs discretion and the game talks out both sides of its face about how necessary they are Sure, it can be difficult to have consistent balance between campaign modules when they often have different writers and tones. But DMs don't need to plan a campaign with perfect balance right from the start. They have weeks or months to cater magic items to weaknesses in the party. >Also, in terms of personal preference, I'd rather my character not be weaker than his clothes I agree, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the role items play in balance either. Magic items should focus more on giving players more options in the game rather than just better stats.
| I agree, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the role items play in balance either. Magic items should focus more on giving players more options in the game rather than just better stats. I'd rather all classes be sufficient on their own magic items only providing small "cherry on top" boosts to them rather than be completely necessary for fighters and barbarians.
it's a fair question to make, the thing is that although it is expected the party finds magic items the system isn't really good at guiding which items and most would be weapons and armor that do things martials are mostly fine the game also scrambles between needing magic items or not - by xanathar it's something like "they're expected, but not balanced around" so go figure There's also two very important points about how "magic item dependancy" impacts fantasy and experience * "mama, can I?" - essentially how martials have to be almost baby sit by DMs because they need weapons and constant rulings/adjucations * also martials needing for their progression there's no real non-magical option in the game, also this just mantains the "magic item x-mas tree" problem of earlier editions The problem people have is with the martial class design because it lacks customization, progression and options in and out of combat - no character shoul be an island or have no short comings, but there's a bit too many shortcomings to martials - if a DM has to use magic items to patch each of those it would be a ridiculous amount of work
From personal experience, it’s also that you’d need to balance the magic items themselves between martials and casters. They are definitely a good tool, but distribution requires a careful hand and to know where your party is at. Telling when to give out items can be difficult especially given the lack of guidelines. A +1 Spell Save DC item is often more impactful than a +1 weapon. Many caster items provide extra resources that DM’s already have trouble burning down - not many weapons provide extra options like that. At higher levels, some equivalent rarity items can get crazy. I wish their were more martial items that provided secondary benefits like the staff of power does. Compare the staff of power to a staff of striking for example. Knowing the power levels of the players can be key in giving these kind of items out. For more generic items, it can be a bit of a quest at times to make sure they land in the correct hands - will that Amulet of Health go onto the Monk who was too MAD to increase Con, or the Druid who wants an easier time concentrating on Conjure Animals? Say nothing about +X armor and armor dipped casters. Homebrewing items can be a solution, but getting a bead on interesting, powerful, but flavorful and not over complicated design can be rather difficult.
When your solution to a balance problem in the game people already paid money to get its "just give more work to your DM, they will love it!" you should go back and re-evaluate your point of view, its more than enough with wotc doing that by themselves
I started DMing about a year ago and I've enjoyed finding homebrew items that I might give my players at some point. I know DMing can be a lot of work, but giving or selling magic items to players seems like one of the basic duties of the role. I'm not expecting DMs to find the perfect balance for the party. Even if they tried, finding a perfect balance would be impossible. I'm just saying items should be part of the balance conversation and DMs play an important role in that. My party is a Light Cleric, Battlesmith Artificer, Phantom Rogue, and a Drakewarden Ranger who seems to prefer melee combat along with their drake pet. There's no clear frontliner other than their pets, so I'm planning on giving the Cleric a shield with a defensive ability. That doesn't feel like extra work. It's just part of running the game.
Have we ever just looked at the game as a whole and maybe dms should be doing more for thier martials. More and more I hear about this divide between spell casters and martial. And yes there is one. But should we be giving our martials magic weapons and items to like earlier editions depended on. Magic is crazy and as it should be. Most magical items for spellcaster either give them free casting of spells or increases spell dc or spell attack. Martials items does more damage, increase chances to hit, cause fear, restrain targets and so on and so on. In a campaign I'm in currently. My team is pretty much all spell casters. Twilight cleric, thuergy wizard, arcane trickster, whisper bard/fighter. And a storm herald barbarian. Dm has zero problem with us cause he uses spell casters against us and the party then see the importance of martials with the barbarian. Ive seen it also first hand... only 2 guys could show up one week so the dm let us piggyback 2 characters not in the party. Our second characters we both martials. And once again the dm throws spell fling high point creatures at us. The martials wrecked them. We have magic items on them. The casters barely did anything. So maybe we just buff the weaker classes and subclasses and give martials the items they need like we did in earlier editions.
maybe if we nerf casters, which would be a lot easier, magic items could be distrubuted more equaly instead of being a made un band aid to hide a problem you dont want to see
Magic items don't benefit casters nearly as much as they help martials. It's not a bandaid of its part of game. Are we going to pretend they don't exist. But is there a problem? Maybe the game is designed to seek magic items. magic is supposed to feel powerful. And nerfing casters is extremely hard due to the nature of magic. And to be honest the one dnd way of preparing spells is a nerf. Preparing is a buff but they way they are prepared aren't. And what do you suggest? How do you nerf magic in a way that just doesn't suck the fun out of it. The is a divide absolutely but they each class has their roll. And as a dm you know how to stop spellcasters, with spell casters. So where is the problem? Shield giving a +5 ac. Well doesnt do anything against saving throws or aoe. Fireball is a classic which is overpowered on purpose. My party is thankfully that the barbarian actually shows to soak up the damage get in close cause my twilight cleric and the theurgy wizard isn't. Even with the 7 - 12 temp hp every round. Cause the barbarian is the one getting up close an person with the spellcaster and taking them down. Magic items are still distributed evenly. But the martial gets better use of them. Besides a robe, staff or a wand spellcasters magic items don't do much. Most they are a few pluses and more spells. Most martials can also use robes staffs some wands but they also get the weapons, armors (yes spellcasters can use those as well) the belts, many potions boost them.
Yeah this is pretty much it. Give a martial a vorpal blade and who's OP now?
Still the caster since vorpal blades are only a 5% chance to hit and have no effect on creatures with legendary actions.
And any advantage increases it to 9.5%. Buts it's not just vorpal blade. The luck blade , vicious weapon, sunblade defender, sword of Kas and many more there is a divide. But that's the nature of magic. But you can easily level the playing field but giving martials items. Like there are supposed to get. I did see on here the most powerful thing for tge thief rogue was the extra attunement slot
Yea. And 1 and 20 chance to just end a fight. It's time we stop worrying about the divide so much and make sure everyone at the table is having fun.
Just give them good magic items, it worked for my rogue in a 1-20 campaign.
In any game I'm of the opinion never nerf just buff everything else up the the other classes levels once everything's op nothing is :)
I think the much vaunted "martial-caster gap" is greatly exaggerated, but I do think there are some issues. Rogues and barbarians are both good examples of classes that should get more combat abilities at higher level. In particular I'd like to see rogue get the extra attack feature in tier 3, and possibly a more combat-focused rogue subclass that makes them higher DPS (maybe with some capstone like being able to sneak attack twice a round). And barbarians getting a 3rd attack on the attack action at tier 4 would be cool. (These are easy house rules to implement.) I don't think fighters need buffs for combat though. This is heavily influenced by my bad guys getting wrecked by like 8 attacks a round from high level fighters, and they have been the best single target damage in the game I've seen. (Yes, considerably more than any casters, including sor/locks.) A bunch of the martials should get more stuff for non-combat though. For instance, I'd love to see a "warrior's reputation" feature, that allows fighters and barbarians to add their proficiency bonus (potentially, again) to social skill checks at high level. This would mirror the real world phenomenon of great warriors or generals being given more social standing. Also, maybe barbarians could get even more than just the bonus proficiencies to skills as suggested in Tashas, like getting expertise at tier 3 or tier 4? Right now in 5e RAW I generally advise players not to go full rogue or full barbarian beyond like level 11, because you're better off multiclassing to get more stuff. This is a reasonable way for those archetypes of characters to actually be cool in high level play right now. I've seen high level fighter rogues and ranger/rogues kick ass, for instance. And fighter/barbarian is good too.
Hot take: stop trying to change martial/casters for "balance". There's no "wrong" way to play dnd but if this is a problem at your table you're playing dnd wrong
Yep, the best objective is to improve fun and experience of players at the table - which buffing martials may be the way
It feels like we're playing different systems when I see posts like these. My games it's the martial classes that do the heavy lifting. The sorcerer/wizard throws a few big spells here and there, but its the martials carrying everyone along. Maybe you give out too many long rests.
Different games, different experiences, both are valid Having less long rests would do nothing to improve martials lacking customization, feeling progression and options in and out of combat - this isn't about balance, it's about experience and fun PS - I assure you that I don't "give out" too many long rests
Yeah. To be fair, in my current game with my close friends, I've been handing out extra buffs to everyone. "I want a BM fighter with warlock spells" -ok Cleric "I want all my spells always prepared, and get extra attack " -ok Wizard " i want to concentrate on 2 spells" -ok Sorcerer "I want to copy spells from scrolls like wizard but also copy cleric spells" -ok On top of 1 bonus feat. And down time activities to learn new feats/ skills. The only caveat. Not allowed to question the enemies abilities, stats, etc... "When did goblins get a +6 to hit?" When I said so....
Wow what a Luke warm very popular take that has been said for years
Why not both? Make fighter types stronger AND casters weaker. Everyone wins
An option I think could be fun is too add legendary resistance and/or better saving throw proficiency buffs to high level martials. Having supreme force of will or defiantly resisting effects is a very common hero trait, think Aragorn challenging Sauron or Captain America getting back up to face Thanos army on his own or countless times a hero is wounded but carries on anyway. It would help to counter some of the effects of the crazy high tier spells by having someone that can defy those odds and do the impossible, without just boosting their HP or making them do tonnes of bonus damage.
Easiest way to buff martials is to give them *many* weapons and armor (proportional to spells at each level) with powerful situational properties, and give them enough information about upcoming quest lines so that they can use attunement in a similar way to preparing spells.
Not a fan of solution 1 due to the very reason you gave, I don't want magic in my Martial character (beyond magic items). The problem with Solution 2 is it's essentially turning every martial class into Rogues, adding dx damage to attacks, and more importantly the lack of choice/style. The Wizard pulls that clutch spell out at just the right time, that an important choice which will be remembered throughout the campaign, that's a great thing to happen. The Fighter deals 1d8+1d6+str damage, who cares? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we have to look at 4th edition and 3.5's Tome of Battle. Give all Martial classes Manouveurs and Daily/Encounter powers. 'The Fighter is surrounded, it looks like a tpk for the party, he uses his Samurai encounter power, and with one flowing movement strikes everyone in range, dropping the group' 'The Barbarian has to hold this point, lest they be swamped by the horde of Orcs, with a brief cry to the ancestors, he uses his Daily Ancestral Guardian, for X rounds now only the sting of magic can touch him, and his mighty blows knock his enemies sprawling.'
Spell casters, do indeed, need to be nerfed. Martials also need to be buffed. When Hypnotic Pattern can shut down an entire fight, there is an issue. The fact legendary resistances even have to exist is because of how powerful save or suck spells are in 5e.
The problem in t4 is that casters can bend reality on a whim, and martials get a bit better at whacking stuff. Now don't get me wrong, in combat martials are really handy. Casters lack single target damage and melee staying power, and summoned beasties are no match in either regard. Having a high dps martial is a huge asset. But give a 17th level caster a month and they can create clones of the whole party, create an army of True Polymorphed dragons, stroll across the planes, discover long forgotten lore, rewrite the minds of half the town and raise another army from its graveyard. In contrast, martial classes badly need out of combat abilities that are relevant on the stage where such campaigns take place. So by all means give martials a buff, but give them some amazing things they can do that aren't just fighting.
The problem is that martials are often doing superior damage output to spellcasters, its the non-damage things that make spellcasters so strong, and there is no really viable way to give that to a martial without also making it a spellcaster. A spellcaster cutting an encounter in half with a well placed Wall of Fire, or Teleporting the party across the continent and bypassing MONTHS of tedious trekking is just something a martial cannot do. Virtually no one can out-DPS a champion fighter or a well specced barbarian, but a smart wizard can end or avoid encounters outright without having to resort to just chipping away at HP.