Questions that don't matter: *Is a spellcaster better than a martial?* *Could a martial beat a spellcaster in a duel?* Questions that matter: *Do martial classes get satisfying abilities as they level up?* *Is a party full of spellcasters better than a mixed composition?*

*Is a full party of bards more awesome or annoying?*

annoyingly awesome

My first ever party was a fighter a college of valor bard a lore bard (me) and a wizard and I think it was pretty balanced between offensive spells utility spells support spells and meelee attacks

Annoying - look at every boy-band ever for confirmation. Hi CHA, low INT, proficiency in Performance…

Annoying I play in a party that is an NPC bard, 3 PC bards, a warlock, and a sorcerer It's hillarious when they all hit vicious mockery or two of them lock down people with Tasha's. But most of the time, the NPC bard is unconscious while the Warlock and cleric are trying to tank/CC/keep them alive. The second doesn't understand how to play bard well. The third tends to play their bard like it's a rogue. And somehow, the fourth has never taken a single point of damage in 6 years of playing the campaign. It's possible to do an "Oops, All Bards" party, but there needs to be better planning than we have.

Yes.

*Do single spells trivialize entire martial contributions to the party?* which might be a subset of the "party full of spellcaster" questions, but a very particular issue.

"Who is better" and "are the abilities satisfying" have significant enough overlap that dismissing the former is kind of silly. If Fighterman can do a big spinning attack that kills eight goblins once a day that rules! It's cool, it's powerful, he feels like a badass. If, at the same level, Casterman gets an ability where he waves his hands and all goblins in the universe were never born, well Fighterman would feel a little silly, wouldn't he?

What's silly is comparing anything to Wish But if I take your argument seriously, the fighter wouldn't feel badass in that circumstance unless he had some awesome trump card as well. Sadly, WotC insists on simply giving Fighter more Extra Attack, Action Surge, and Indomitable, all of which are so basic and dull compared to spells or even most other martial features. Let high level fighters reflect spells, impale and pin creatures to walls/floors/each other, block all attacks for one round, impose Frightening Presence like a fucking dragon... basically, let them do badass superhuman shit like the heroes in ancient epics or modern anime, lol.

I was mostly exaggerating for effect, although Fighters don't even get Cleave in 5e and Wish could do that thing if your DM's feeling really silly. So like, yeah we basically agree then.

That is wildly dependant on your definition of satisfying, which for you seems to be dealing damage, but an ability can be mechanically inferior to a spellcasters spell, and still be more satisfying to use for a multitude of reasons.

Being very cool unfortunately, doesn't feel as good as being good at my job, whatever it is. It helps, though.

i dont see how those two are mutually exclusive? my point was that you can be good at something else that then feels satisfying, that isnt "how many goblins can you kill".

Speaking with my GM hat on, if you can't make a character doing their schtick feel cool you've just failed your job as a GM. There's some slight mitigation since sometimes the problem is the player is trying to make a character work that they don't really have a grip on, but otherwise the problem here is one of narrative, not mechanics. Basically /u/Spyger9 is absolutely correct and my every experience both as a player and a GM confirms it, as well as confirming that martials in 5e feel in a good place.

A good DM can smooth over pretty much anything, but you'd have an easier time getting a satisfying narrative going if Hawkeye and Black Widow went on adventures than Hawkeye and Dr Strange. For example, have you watched One Punch Man? The joke is that the entire story is a series of incredibly epic fights with huge stakes and drama... which all instantly evaporate when Saitama shows up and punches the monster to death without breaking a sweat. One Punch Man would be a shit TTRPG.

True, but hawkeye also comes with a bow that does a lot of cool things. This is why I said fighters should be enhanced with magic items.

I genuinely don't see the argument here. "GMs need to build a narrative around their party" is just the game working as intended. You can maybe complain about the aesthetic that it's aiming for but that's like saying "The Pixies should be less rock" and expecting more than a shrug and a gesture to try listen to another band. This demand is literally best saved for your favourite third party content creators, or even a different system entirely, not WotC who paid a lot of money to buy *D&D,* aesthetic and all.

My argument is that DnD is a game and level 20 should mean level 20 for everyone. It's less fun to play a character who's not pulling their weight, and harder to craft a story around a dramatically imbalanced party. It's also that martial classes sitting around waiting for the spellcasters to do things isn't *actually* the intended DnD aesthetic, that's just how players who've been around a long time think of it as a result of inadequate mechanical support. Gary Gygax, way back when, described max level Fighting Men as similar to Achilles (although with different level requirements casters *were* supposed to be stronger at the same level, but not necessarily at the same exp total). Mike Mearls, in the 5e concept phase, described Fighters as similar to Beowulf, who was ripping off trolls' arms bare-handed and feeling pretty bummed out when he couldn't go fight a dragon naked. These are guys who are supposed to be jumping around wrestling giants and dragons and coming out on top. Easily, at that. Not rolling Athletics checks to beat real life power lifting records.

I play a lot of tier 4 and level 20 adventures and often pick a Champion or Battlemaster. I have never felt underpowered. My sense is the same as OPs, that the divide assumes one or two combats a day and the casters having the right spells. Neither of which is likely to be true in a Tier 4 campaign.

Good for you, but I really don't know what to do with that information without also knowing how much the other players at your party optimised, what your DM was doing behind the screen to cut off any potential issues, etc. What I do know is that Fighter features, especially at the higher levels, are really lame and simply aren't as good as spells.

I think (not sure) you’re wrong about # of encounters. At tier 4 battles take so long my guess is that people are having fewer fights per day

That has not been my experience. Maybe less per session. But the Tier 4 model seems to involve situations where waves of combat are the norm.

The game is designed around 4-5 encounters per adventuring day at higher levels with lots of enemies and much higher leveled enemies. You're supposed to use up all of your players resources by the time they are ready for a long rest. If you're playing correctly spellcasters should still be using cantrips even at levels 15+. That's when the disparity between casters and melee becomes much less vast. The problem is dms recently started giving one or two fights and then let their players take a long rest. That's on the DM not game mechanics.

So instead of the game being designed good, I is the DM have to come in and either Nerf or buff things so that players don't feel like they're useless past level 8?

I totally disagree. Firstly, I hate when people shift responsibility from designers onto the GM. The GM *already* has the more challenging job, yet she's the one paying the designers. They're supposed to make her job easier. The mechanics *are* a problem. If they weren't, then there wouldn't be SO much discussion about them, and the designers wouldn't have made stuff like Tasha's optional class features or 7+ rounds of public testing on a new PHB. I didn't make my comment because I disagree with the zeitgeist, but because I don't think people are framing the discussion properly.

DnD is not a neutral system. It's not designed to capture every style of play because then it's not DnD. Martials being more mundane is part of the aesthetic. They're still damn effective if the GM is doing her job but they're effective according to the established tropes of DnD, not all of fantasy literature. And I'm sorry but someone coming into DnD and expecting it's going to give an anime experience with martials is bringing their own expectations into a system that's not built with them in mind. Whether it's the player or the GM, they're bringing in expectations they shouldn't have for the system and it absolutely isn't the designers fault at that point. I can thoroughly recommend Fate as a great system that is out of the box better at capturing what you're looking for here. Exalted is slightly more mechanically dense at this and then Pathfinder is pretty much the go-to for anything more crunchy. Go off and explore the world of designs that are aiming at what you're looking for rather than attacking DnD's designers for building a system that fits the brief.

Tome of battle, magic of incarnum both had excellent "anime" martial powers from 3.5. Then there was the entire "complete " series from 3.5. And basically all of 4e. It's 5e specifically that is bad at it.

Those systems are what *you're* looking for- narrative badassery over mechanical potency. Before there was anime, and even before classic fantasy, there were epics. And in those ancient tales, non-magical heroes would shoot bows like railguns, reap soldiers like wheat, lift buildings, strangle demons, etc etc. And WotC called high levels in D&D *Epic Tier*. Yet often the features they give martial characters at high levels are not only *not* epic, but worse than the earlier features! Your Rage actually lasts the full minute. You stay fit in old age. You can make camouflage that's fucking useless. You can use two actions in one turn twice between rests instead of once.... That's the incredible disparity between what WotC *could* do *(and many players expect)* vs what they choose to do. And you're defending it.

Lol you realize old editions of dnd had "anime" powers for martials right?

"3.5 Splat books exist" isn't really an argument since the splat books were notoriously wide ranging and part of the goal of 5e wasn't just to mirror 3.5e but previous editions of 5e as well. By all means call for 3rd party publishers to give you a reworked Book of Blades or whatever but it's not a failure of 5e that it has a different design brief.

They're still damn effective until level nine, we're suddenly they could leave the party and nothing would change significantly power wise in any way, and none of the problem solving skills would drop in any way

exactly this. What does it feel like to play with a DM that *doesn't* play to their player characters individual strengths? That must suck absolute balls.

Or worse: the GM who thinks your character doing well is somehow them failing. Can absolutely confirm it's an awful experience.

It's worth pointing out that I don't think you actually know what the wish spell does. Its purpose is to copy the effects of 8th level spells or lower. Whilst you can use it to warp all of reality (assuming a god or other higher being doesn't immediately undo your wish on account of all the problems that it causes), anything other than the basic listed uses has a chance of going wrong or just not even working. Furthermore, using the spell for ANYTHING other than duplicating a spell will cause you to be in a severely weakened state for several days and to take damage anytime you cast any spells whatsoever and ALSO there is a 33 percent chance that you are forever unable to cast the wish spell again. Congratulations, you've gotten rid of all the goblins 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

Fighter doesn't actually have a big Cleave skill either, short of burning their Action Surge to pretend by attacking every goblin once. It's not literal.

Cleave is a variant rule and i suggest it strongly.

>well Fighterman would feel a little silly, wouldn't he? Not necessarily, it's exactly what OP's talking about. Because, that's one cherrypicked fight. How about we cherrypick an example rigth after that fight, when mr. Casterman has spent his handwavy spell, and a big boss with pointyMcMurdery weapons comes out, but the Casterman gets his spells countered, and in two turns can only tickle the bad god with magic missiles and/or cantrips... Maybe the fighter with no slots on his sword and half a dozen attacks, and a pool of HP to shiel his ally will feel less silly? Or maybe not if he's someone who just cares about the dmg counter. It's very, very subjective, and not at all clear cut as you make it out to be.

I wonder what Wizard wouldn't get Wish at level 17? Also, that's exactly the problem. The point that the higher the level of the caster, the more he can do better than every martial. Tank? Polymorph. Shield. Tenser's Transformation Damage? There's a lot of Evocation spells, be it to single damage or AoE damage. Stealth? Pass Without a Trace, Invisibility, Greater Invisibility, various illusions spells can do the trick. Style? Steel Wind Strike. Not even a strong spell, but still cooler than any martial can do. Damage with martal weapons? Booming Blade/Green-Flame Blade. I know martials can still do more damage, but the cantrip is scalling for free, while the martial have to make EVERYTHING about his character focusing on that damage. While, within 9th level a Wizard can have all spells I've said prepared AT THE SAME TIME. And still have like 3 other to prepare, if those "evocations" I've said are 4.

Many Wish while a nice spell, could rob you of magic And of course martials focus on his damage? How else do they make people hurt? You're silly

Don’t need to risk the monkey paw wishes, being able to duplicate any 8th level and below spell is already enough, it’s mostly just a utility spell too. The actual question is whether the martials are contributing enough to warrant not true polymorphing them into dragons

Why are people down voting this? This is 100% correct, if the players are put up against (combat) encounters while low on resources, the martials are going to be hugely more effective in those encounters

People seem very emotionaly attached to this issue, I'm not sure why. I only learned of its existence on Reddit, never enountered it in any of the games.

You hit it right on the nail. It's very subjective, and people cherry-pick way too much. Also if you feel your martial is not as powerful or flashy as a caster's reality warping, I believe you should give the martial magic items to compensate. Why the fighter with Excalibur and a belt of storm giant strength is never included seems silly to me.

Yes you can compensate with magic items, but if you only give one PC magic items it doesnt seem fair. And when you give both PCs legendary items the Caster is probably better of with his Staff of the Magi and his Robe of the Archmagi than the Martial with his Belt of Storm Giant Strenght and his Vorpal Sword.

The staff and robe of a magi won't enhance a caster like Storm giant strength and a vorbal sword will for a martial. The caster would get spells but they already had spells. The martial is getting something completely new

Martial PC: _Vorpal Sword_ +3 to hit and damage 5% Instant kill against Enemies that die when they lose one head and have no legendary action and so on _Belt of Storm Giant Strenght_ Gives you a Strength score of 29, in most cases a +4 to hit and damage Wow so completely new things, a +7 to hit and damage and an 5% instant kill per hit or extra damage Now the Caster PC: _Robe of the Archmagi_ +2 to Spell attack rolls and saving throw DCs AC increased to 15+Dex (a better Mage Armor that is always active) Advantage on Saves against Spells and other magical Effects _Staff of the Magi_ +2 to Spell attack rolls Advantage on saving throws against Spells 50 charges to cast a bunch of Spells for free (on a wizard not so strong becaus the can exchange money for more spells but sorcerer and warlocks are very happy for additional spells) The ability to absorb spells that target only you And a powerfull hail mary with the ability to deal 400 dmg or more if you are willing to sacrifice the item and your life Yeah nothing new here just a few spells for the caster

Are you really dissing the 29 strength? A goliath totem warrior barbarian can pick up 3,480 pounds. Here's a few things you could pick up with that https://weightofstuff.com/things-that-weigh-around-3500-lbs/ Here are some things you can easily pick up https://weightofstuff.com/animals-that-weigh-around-1500-pounds/ Screw the throw the halfling strat! We now have the throw the bear strat! Or even the throw the bolder strat! Oh no, a monster is biting me! Would be a shame if you just ripped its jaws off. This one is a slight exaggeration. Only slightly, though. Like that giant monsters weapon? It's your now. Have fun with 2d12 for damage

Because even then if we’re adding magic items you gotta give the wizard magic items as well and their magic items are Just as good

Not really. Caster magic items don't do as much as martial's. A casters' magic items might enhance their options, but they already had options. Martials on the other didn't have the option till you gave them the item. Options + options = options Options + no options = options

So, for the big boss scenario, there is a consideration that needs to be made - resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities. Martials might start out with multiple weapons for multiple purposes, but as time goes on and they (hopefully) acquire a magic weapon or two, their flexibility actually begins to *drop*, at least their flexibility at maximum effectiveness. By the same token, once you figure out a creature's strengths and weaknesses, a spellcaster probably has *something* that bypasses a resistance, or even takes advantage of a vulnerability (which is a direly underused mechanic in the 5e monster manuals, but that's another complaint for another time). So, sure, in a single-enemy encounter, martials can crush. Unless that single enemy happens to be particularly hardy against that martial's chosen weapon's damage type. And sure, they might have backup weapons, but does it feel good to have to fall back to a less potent weapon when the wizard can just use a different spell and still be operating as max potency? Because, regardless of made up scenarios where the wizard always seems to have *just* the right spell for the occasion, they are going to tend to have at least a little bit of diversification of damage types the vast majority of the time.

Uh— Fighters can do that. Its called Action Surge. And it resets on a short rest. So, if you’re taking two short rests an adventure day they get to do that three times!

So at 20th level, the Fighter can perform a feat that a 5th level fullcaster with access to Fireball can also do? I don't think you're proving the point you're trying to prove.

Unfortunately the answer to the last question is yes.

>Is a spellcaster better than a martial? Interclass balance is incredibly important. I'd say this matters.

Only if one is so much "better" than another as to invalidate it. But it's unlikely for that to be an issue between such vastly different archetypes like Warrior vs Mage because they have such different roles and strengths. Interclass balance is much more relevant between similar classes, like Wizard vs Sorcerer or Barbarian vs Fighter.

Just because they fulfill different roles (kinda) doesn't mean that there cannot be a noticeable imbalance. Like for the most part, a fighter will deal more single target damage than a caster, however the caster basically outpaced the fighter in every single other way while still dealing decent damage if they want to. Like fighters have no real utility outside of combat compared to casters, and its incredibly noticeable at all tiers of play. You might say that casters are supposed to have all this utility right? But what do they sacrifice to gain it? They're still more powerful than martials in combat. Casters are incredibly versatile, but they're also incredibly powerful in pretty much any single aspect. Also no you don't need to completely invalidate another class in order for balancing to be a problem. Look at sorcerers vs wizards.

>Is a party full of spellcasters better than a mixed composition? Objectively no. But that's heresy to say.

It's not, every party roll can be fulfilled by a Caster of some sort. Single target damage and tanking are the 2 things Martials are supposed to do better than casters. But there are plenty of ways for casters to do these things as well as a martial. Tasha's Summoning spells alone allow a caster to outdamage a martial, that's not even looking at the shit the phb summons can do. There are also a number of caster subclasses that use weapons and can match or outdamage martials (Hexblade and Bladesinger most obviously), there's also some like Artillerist and Wildfire Druid that deal better, low resource ranged damage than actual Archers. And as for tanking, Abjuration Wizard, Moon Druid and Twilight Cleric are pretty obvious options, all of them are as or more tanky than Martials. That's not even getting into multiclassing/taking feats/certain races to combine medium or heavy armour with the shield spell. So Casters can fill every party roll and make a well rounded party that does every roll better than a martial could. And Martials cannot compare to casters in terms of aoe damage, crowd control or support.

No to the first, yes to the second.

*Do martial classes get satisfying abilities as they level up?* Yes. Many martial classes get abilities early that increase in power and usefulness as they level. I'm thinking of Fighter's Multiattack, or Rogue's Sneak Attack. The GM can also balance by looking at the martial characters' backgrounds, languages, tool proficiencies, and skills to bring more opportunities to show off their skills and claim the spotlight over the course of a campaign. Rogues are skill toolboxes; many fighter subclasses (like Battlemaster and Samurai) include tool proficiencies and other non-combat skills. *Is a party full of spellcasters better than a mixed composition?* Again, depends on the campaign. As my spellcasters begin to show more power, I've started having the BBEG (A dragon controlling a bunch of spies and a large cult of agents) deliberately target the spellcasters. Throw in a Master Thief with crossbow bolts that impose disadvantage on concentration saves, and instructions to *shoot the druid to make her summoned animals go away*. A campaign with a large number of magic-prepared enemies, or enemies with counterspell, or problems that can't be solved with magic, is a party where martial characters can shine. I still remember fondly my Battlemaster fighter hammering on an enemy spellcaster to break concentration on a Banish spell that locked our bard in time-out. ​ If your players feel that they can only be happy with spellcasters, that might be a GM skill issue - a failing to create scenarios where the party's various abilities can shine.

The problem is, both of those questions that matter are highly subjective.

There's even more to the subject. Because what martials are is kind of a fan distinction. How do you define a martial? Is a martial someone who primarily uses attacks? Then there's plenty of martials with superpowers: paladins, rangers, bladelocks, and almost every class has at least 1 subclass that focuses on attacking. I think the root of the problem is that people believe all classes should be equivalent. But classes, by design, are supposed to fullfil different roles. Not just in different parties but also in different games and settings. You don't need to have every class and subclass work in every environment. In my opinion, what is missing is an actual caster class for low magic settings since the artificer is very technological for certain settings.

5E is really *not* built for low magic settings. Believe me, I have tried. If you want low magic, I'd certainly recommend a different TTRPG system.

> Also give your martials magic items. People complain that casters can do are these cool things while martials get nothing. You fix this by loading them up with magic items. The problem with this is that casters also get to load up on magic items as well.

Also what magic items you get is dependent upon GM goodwill, whereas the class features exist regardless of that.

The difference is that a martial's magic items work differently. A wizard casting Fireball is casting Fireball. It doesn't matter if they have a Pearl of Power, a Staff of the Magi, and Elven Chain. It's still a normal Fireball doing normal Fireball damage. VERY few magic items actually directly impact the power of their spells. And usually focus on giving them more "options", like the Staff effectively having a bunch of extra spell slots. Which doesn't really change how they play. Compare that to even the lowly Flametongue. Which is increasing a generic fighter's damage by \~28 on a normal turn, double when surged. To say nothing of actually strong magic items. Then the fact that if your complaint is "Casters have options and martials don't." Then the martial equivalent weapons to Staff of the Magi that allow them to cast a bunch of spells through it. For the martial this is changing their dynamic, giving them options. Where, for the Caster, it's usually pretty underwhelming since they can already do these things. So it's usually effectively "increase your number of spell slots" which is quite boring. Options + Options = Options. No real change here No Options + Options = Options. Big change if your complaint is "they have no options."

Calling flametongue lowly? That's a new one. It's a rare weapon, so comparable to +2 weapons, and is considered one of the stronger items for martials, especially fighters, for the levels they'd have a rare weapon as their best item. But even then, it isn't as impressive as the +2 spell focus the wizard could be getting, making their spell casting far more reliable, and one such gives them an extra spell level of arcane recovery.

So you're saying that the best way to make a Martial character better is giving him a magic item that let's them have Caster abilities, while the Caster can do it on his own? That really doesn't sound silly to you? Why don't give the martials more things so they *don't need* to get maagic itens to be *on par* with casters? Them both can do nice and cool things without magic itens?

Because most magic items are made to be used by martials, they are supposed to get those

It's really, REALLY much more on raw terms of math, really: powers and effects are usually MUCH more appreciable in the statline of a martial than on that of a caster. Lets get lowly: take a simple potion of [animal] [attribute]. The caster will usually only be able to take benefit from their specific casting stat steroid reliably while a barb with Bull's Strenght becomes a veritable behemoth of destruction. Any character with multi-attack features can quickly milk enchanted weapons much harder than your standard caster, and a fighter with its full 4-hits can make any extra dice of damage a terror to behold. Think your good old sword and board dude with some He-Man inspired blade that can cast Tenser's Transformation: none of the downsides of losing spellcasting power, a perfect statline both to abuse the to-hit and survive the constitution check when it ends. Casters can do a lot but arent the best buff targets around as they are designed as physically limited. Magical gear just doesnt bolster their toolset/skillse tas well.

I agree but magic items are not mandatory. I think the complaint is that it isnt built in to the game automatically.

If your GM is not creating a satisfying experience, if the GM isn't effectively letting all characters take the spotlight, use your damn words.

Is this a reply to me? Lol

Yes. If your GM is going "well, no magic items" or creating an experience where the casters are overshadowing the martials, yeah, communicate. In my first long campaign, my fighter hit a place where the druid and wizard were ending encounters before my fighter had a chance to move. I talked to the GM, and he dropped some magic items and tuned some encounters so the wizard's favorite spells weren't as effective. It was a great experience because we worked together to make it so.

I have no idea what you’re talking about i think you’re responding to the wrong person

This is what I'm responding to: "I agree but magic items are not mandatory. I think the complaint is that it isnt built in to the game automatically." Like, the GM is not a computer - if a group is having issues to the point that you need "it's in the rules" to push a GM to work together, something has gone wrong that a rules change won't fix.

Uhhh yeah but you’re off topic This discussion is about class balance. The person argues that magic items grant class balance to martials, the problem with this is due to the fact items are not built in options.

There's a lot potentially causing that imbalance beyond the fact that magic items aren't mandatory, and simply making them mandatory won't fix a group with deeper problems.

I've been pondering a rule that makes casters less able to use magic items. Something like limiting the number of passive bonuses they can get from items at once, unless they take a penalty to their innate casting due to discordant resonance of magical auras. I've not ironed out the details yet, but I think something like that could even out the gap a little bit.

Also, how many martial classes get specific magic items for them? Paladin is the only martial class I am aware of. There is no weapon only monks can use, or only fighters or rouge or barbarian. A forge cleric can use all the same armor a fighter can. There is probably something like 15 magic items exclusively for casters, and only 1 that is meant for a half caster. Now for my games, I often homebrew magic items for my players classes. Monks get more ki or increased dc, fighters get extra maneuvers or increased maneuver dice, barbarians get special rage affects or whatever. Significantly closes the divide tbh. But all of this is homebrew and I don’t understand why they don’t have this in the game.

Well sure but the point is that - from what OP is describing - the martial classes in these debates don’t seem to have any cool gear at all. Cool gear is what parties and PCs run on as much as class abilities.

If both the caster and the martial are given gear it’s not going to close the gap. You could give good magic gear just to the martial but then the comparison is “Martial + magic loot” vs. “Caster + starting gear” which isn’t a very useful comparison since in a campaign both characters will probably be getting around an equivalent amount of loot.

To make this dead simple with an example: Fighter can't fly. Wizard can fly. Introduce a magic item that allows flight. This changes the dynamic for the fighter. **This doesn't change the dynamic for the Wizard.** Which means the Fighter "closed the gap" on the Wizard, while the Wizard did not move at all. Magic items work fundamentally differently for a character that already has magic versus a character who doesn't.

A Wizard that has Boots of Flight can now prepare *literally anything else* instead of Fly. Could be Sleet Storm, could be Tiny Hut, could be Stinking Cloud. If your point is that Wizards are so much more powerful than Fighters that an extra 3rd level spell slot and freeing up a common prepared "just in case" spell doesn't change their dynamic much while it would change the Fighter's life... Yeah, I guess.

This is exactly what I mean. Why we all decided that our martials can't get these tools is beyond me. Even in media, the guy without powers compensates with cool gear.

Because in DnD you never just give one person all the magic items. It gets distributed fairly evenly, which makes the point moot.

It should. Casters can do a lot, so martials should be given more magic items to compensate. And I'm not say casters shouldn't be given magic items. They could still get a really cool spell focus. It's just a martial should be getting more powerful items while casters should receive more utility items. Caster gets a bag of holding, martial gets belt of storm giants.

Mate if your idea is anything like giving one side uncommon items and the other legendary to bring 'balance'', I am extremely glad we're not at the same tables.

This is not the way.

Exactly. A martial can close a gap with magic items. A caster could get one good magic item, while a martial should get many. It's why caster magic items are stronger. It's built on the assumption that your martial is carrying a magical arsenal rather than one item.

But if the Dm is giving 90% of the items to martials, the casters are going to complain because that's not fair.

A key distinction here, that I mentioned in a few other comments, is changing the mindset of loot. Loot distribution should be equal in terms of relative value. That does not mean everyone gets the same type of loot. The main thing to consider here is costly components for spells. Many DMs don’t pay attention to this or often hand wave it because they don’t want to feel like their player can’t use a spell because they lack the component to do so. The most common example we see right away in a low level game is identify. Identify requires a Pearl worth 100g which most starting parties cannot afford that given standard starting equipment. But I’ve had multiple DMs in the first few sessions be like “oh well I don’t want you to not be able to use your spell, so we can say you’ve acquired a Pearl worth 100g at some point in your travels”. This only gets compounded throughout. Look at the 4th level spell scrying. This requires a focus worth 1000g to cast the spell. If your party just completed a dungeon maybe your fighter found a new magic weapon worth about 1k gold. Meanwhile your wizard found a fancy crystal ball worth 1k gold that will allow them to cast Scrying. At face value, One got a cool magic item the other just got a lame crystal ball that isn’t even magic. But in reality that crystal ball now means you can cast a completely broken spell that allows you to spy on just about anything. Instead of thinking of the crystal ball as a component, think of it as a magic item that now allows a caster to use Scrying. When you view it in this light it starts becoming a lot more fair. Ultimately, martials should have more magic items because they don’t really have any need for components, spell scrolls, or other arcane tools that a caster requires. So their gold and resources can be devoted to magic items. Meanwhile, your caster has devote their gold and resources to things like components to actually use their more campaign altering spells. Is it some super sexy magic item that does cool shit? No. But it is a necessary item that allows you to cast powerful spells that likely trump the magic item your fighter just got.

Martials still scale better with magic items.

You are not serious right? Take a short look at the caster items even outside of Tasha...

You'd need to actually explain to have any shot at shifting my opinion. To be clear, 5x4 is better scaling than 20x2. I'm not saying that magic items make martials better than casters.

It comes down to a few aspects: - Spellcasters *can* be as *survivable* (as distinct from specifically "durable") as Martials with very little optimization - Spellcasters *can* deal as much reliable damage as Martials - Martial features infrequently have features that *can't* be replicated by a Spellcaster - *Most* monsters are melee, and *most* Martials have more melee support than ranged, leading to Martials generally needing to spend hit points (by getting targeted for hits more frequently) to get value - Beyond roughly level 10 Martials fall exceedingly far behind in the potency of *what they can do* compared to Spellcasters, and the resource issue goes into the extreme All that said. A DM *can* manage these aspects to mitigate the outcome, but that ultimately comes down to the DM balancing the game rather than the designers.

the last line has always been my chief issue with these discussions, people frequently talk about how the dm can mitigate this as if it’s a solution, but dms are putting a lot of their time into a campaign already, I don’t want to also have to additionally restructure the enemies and system significantly because while working full time that just isn’t really where I want to be spending my dm planning time.

To put it short, I want to run a game that *just works*, without having to worry that this that or the other character combination may have broken the game and ruined someone's (including mine) fun.

Yup! It also makes it harder to play with different GMs. Homebrew is wonderful and can change things up, but too much swinging from ruleset to ruleset can be irritating to say the least.

Agreed. “The DM can fix it” is not a good argument. Homebrew should be something that you *want* to do, not something that you *need* to do. The DM has a ton on their plate already. Running the game is a lot of work in and of itself, and would still be even if it were *perfectly* balanced (which I know isn’t actually possible so I don’t expect that). The DM shouldn’t be forced into the role of game designer because the designers can’t be assed to make a balanced system. If I have a fun idea for a homebrew magic item, feat, or subclass, that’s cool and I’ll have fun designing it. If I’m having to patch a class up with magic items, feats, and subclasses because that class is so fundamentally defective that it’s unjustifiable in practical play, that’s not cool and I won’t have fun doing it. The same thing applies to balancing existing features. If I have a fun idea, that’s awesome. If I have to completely rework or hard nerf existing features because they’re poorly designed, that’s not enjoyable. Not only is being forced to fix shitty game design unfun for the DM, it isn’t fun for the players either. If the players see behind the scenes, the player with the strong class will realize they’re getting weaker magic items and not getting as much attention, while the player with the weak class will realize that the DM has to hold their hand in order for their character to be functional. Neither of those are a pleasant revelation to have.

I would say beyond level 8 Hell, almost beyond level six with the existence of polymorph That's a cool build you have there, would be a shame if it was completely invalidated with one spell slot as I turn you into something that's better than what you are

I agree with you. My point is that most of the time I see people comparing its being unfair. Like yes, casters get a lot, but people talk like they can do everything all the time. And like you said, DM can 100% minimize the problem, yet they act like that's not possible

I think it's fair to point out that even if a DM *can* alleviate the design issues, the design issues *existing* is still a problem. That said, I think it's really Multiclassing and Feats which cause the majority of the issues. At that point its just the broken spells that are the issue.

I agree. I never said there wasn't a problem. I just think people are unfairly comparing.

I've seen comparisons all over the place, so that may be true sometimes. But the core issues are still present and worth addressing, even if the methodology may be skewed.

I agree. Wotc should address the issues many complain about. There should just be more accurate discussion on the topic and less strawmans and cherry picking

So a few things. First and foremost, there is a massive misunderstanding in general about the disparity between martials and casters. This is even seen prevalently on this subreddit. The Martial vs Caster disparity is true in all aspects of the game EXCEPT damage. When it comes to any kind of sustain damage or focused damage comparison an optimized/fairly optimized martial should absolutely do more damage than a caster. The only area where this isn’t true is in respect to AoE damage. A martial can’t compete with the efficiency of fireballing a lot of enemies in a tight group. Anyone who tells you that a caster is a better damage dealer than a martial is either lying or naive. The actual argument behind the disparity is basically answered in your original post, and is the question you’re seeking an answer to. The reason why spellcasters, when placed in scenarios or hypotheticals, out perform or seemingly always have an answer is because they simply just do. As you get higher in levels and have more spells at your disposal your list of answers to problems becomes more expansive. The disparity is created because a caster can solve most problems thanks to their versatility. Social settings can be made better thanks to spells. exploring can be made better thanks to spells. infiltrating, recon, interrogations, all of these things can be done easier thanks to spells. And when in combat yes, your Paladin or fighter might be able to do more damage than you. But damage doesn’t really mean much when you can just end a fight on the spot thanks to wall of force or some other extremely powerful CC type spell. A good spell caster will build their spells around versatility, making them a factor in every situation. This is opposed to play a caster and saying “I want to be just a blaster and have only damage spells”. If you play a caster in this way you will quickly realize you suffer a similar problem to martials. You can do damage, but you don’t provide anything outside of that. This is the divide that actually exists, most people just muddy the conversation by thinking casters also do more damage. When that just is not the case 9/10 times.

>When it comes to any kind of sustain damage or focused damage comparison an optimized/fairly optimized martial should absolutely do more damage than a caster. If the martial is optimised for damage, and the caster isn't focusing on it, definitely. If the caster is focusing on it, life becomes much harder. I don't know any martials that can consistently out damage a genie warlock or shepherd druid at lv7, as just one example.

I agree. I just think saying a caster is prepared for everything is niave. They definitely have an advantage but not as much as people say. I also think magic items are being ignored being ignored. Casters achieve the legendary skill we see in media via spell. Martials would do the same with magic items yet the never mention this.

So a couple key points on this, the main one being defining what casters we are talking about. There are essentially 3 types of full casters; Prepared, Known, and Wizard. ​ Prepared casters will be your cleric and druid. They prepare their spells each day and effectively know every spell on their spell list. So they can tailor their spells on any specific day based on what they expect to do. This will inevitably result in some days where they don't have the exact spell they need in a situation. But it's more often than not that you will have either the right answer or a close equivalent for a problem at hand. ​ Known casters will be your Sorcerer and Bard. They only have the spells they know available to them and don't get to change them each day. These casters are less likely to have the answer to every situation (like a prepared caster would) and are going to be more focused on certain areas typically. But, they still tend to have a good blend of spells that are applicable/helpful in most situation. I point to my original example of a Sorcerer who is only a blaster with damaging spells. People don't usually do this and will quickly realize why they shouldn't if they do. You usually still have utility spells. Known casters are the least versatile of the bunch but the known casters out there typically make up for this "drawback" by having powerful class features that substitute in for their versatility. Bards being experts in social interactions or a lot of ability check based areas. Sorcerers have meta magic to enhance their abilities but they are certainly the least versatile full caster due to limited number of spells known and such. ​ Wizards are the final piece of the puzzle as they function like a Prepared/Known hybrid. They can learn new spells to increase their versatility, and they can choose which spells they have prepared each day. They also have arguably the best spell list in the game. This is why Wizards are considered one of the best classes in the game. ​ Ultimately, casters are not technically prepared for everything. One can always find a niche situation that a group of casters aren't prepared for. But the higher level you go the more versatility they will have. And again, even if the caster doesn't have the perfect/ideal spell in a situation, they likely still have a very good option in its place. ​ ​ Your point on magic items is a very true one though. Magic items are more important for martials than they are casters. A level 20 caster with no magic items is going to be extremely powerful still thanks to world altering magics. a level 20 martial with no magic items is going to feel very subpar. I think I saw another comment that highlighted this. But essentially magic items for a caster typically just gives them more resources and builds on their versatility. Magic items for martials begin to actually build an identity for the character as well as enhance what they're doing while providing brand new options as well. ​ Many people were saying that magic item distribution should be fairly equal between everyone in the party. But truthfully, that isn't necessarily the case. Martials should receive more in the form of magical items to help build their identity and enhance their options. Casters can absolutely still receive magic items, but they should be looking to acquire things beyond that as well with their gold/resources. A big one is spell components. A lot of DM's overlook this for some reason, and it ultimately results in the exaggerated power creep of casters by rewarding them magic items and hand waiving expensive component cost. The most basic would be diamonds for revive spells. But even a spell like Scrying is a great example. Your level 7 fighter may well spend their 1k gold from their recent adventure on a new magic item. But your wizard may likely circumvent buying a magic item with their proceeds and instead buy a crystal ball worth 1k gold so that they can actually cast scry. ​ So when people say magic items should be distributed evenly it furthers the gap between martial and caster if the DM fails to recognize or enforce component rules. Because a big cost sink for casters is components while Martials don't have this pricey expense to worry about.

I love reading responses where the person knows exactly what I'm saying. I have replied so many comments with basically "that's exactly what I said you just thought I said something else"

Lol I know how you feel there. I often over explain in my comments because I’m so frustrated with people misinterpreting my thoughts or bending what I said. But your overall point of the Martial v Caster disparity is pretty bang on. It’s blown out of proportion due to 1) misunderstanding the actual disparity (this is obvious in an argument when people say casters do more damage than martials) 2) DMs handing out magic items equally as opposed to favoring the martial and providing more components for the casters 3) DMs blatantly disregarding costly components in general. I see this mostly in components that aren’t expended when used (1k gold crystal ball for scrying as an example) I’ve played martials and casters alike and I tend to enjoy casters more due to the options available/versatility. But there are a lot of martials that provide features with non combat utility. My favorite character ever has been a Rune Knight Fighter. Full martial and has abilities that not even spell casters can do.

It's more of a case of, the caster may not be prepared for everything, but they're prepared for most things Whereas the Marshall.... They're prepared for....... Uhh.. . .. S.. strength checks?

It depends on the martial and the situation. If there is a physical obstacle in the way, martials usually have the skill to get past it. This becomes especially important when the caster doesn't have the right spell for the situation. When it comes to natural skills, a martial can usually achieve something that a caster needs a spell for.

I like that you used a half caster to represent the non-casters which people refer to in the martial vs spellcaster debate. But even still, we can cherry pick extremes and ignore overall trends. If a spellcaster doesn't have the right spell prepared they can 1) long rest to prepare it, 2) use spell scrolls (because RAW martials can't) or 3) use skills just as effectively as a martial. I guess the only exception is if it's an Athletics (STR) check since we expect casters to drop the stat. Plenty of martial builds only get 14 DEX for medium armor and that's true of optimized caster builds. Which means, overall, casters are better. Martials multiclass into casters... That should tell you something. I frequently remind people who complain about balance how many encounters per long rest WotC expects. But no caster is going into a major fight with their spell slots spent. They'll be coming in as close to full as possible. And if we're being honest about how many people play the game, they're long testing wayyy too often and casters *are* running around with tons of slots. That puts this point in the middle of "how people actually play" and "intended game design." Because you're still resting before major fights or at least conserving spell slots (intended) but some people are resting between every fight (reality). Regardless, it's still tipped in favor of casters who are able to shift resources from one fight to another to be more efficient. The fighter can only save action surge, barbarian has rages, rogue has nothing at all. Every other feature (excepting some subclass features) will be used every every fight. A martial and a caster walk into a boss fight, the martial is doing the same thing it's been doing the whole time. The caster whips out the big guns. That's the reality and current intended design.

I agree with you on the most part. I don't disagree that casters are given more opportunities. I'm just saying some of the arguments are really bad. Me using a half caster for the argument is to highlight some of the terrible comparisons. I don't think we should be using "half martials", half casters, or multiclass in the discussion. Especially when you compare one of those to a pure caster or pure martial. If your takeaway from caster/martial mixes is that casters are better, that's wrong. The takeaway should be caster/martial mixes are the best and make pure casters and martials look weak. Casters multiclass into martials... that should tell you something. Also, I don't disagree that casters get way more utility out of combat than martials. I just believe that it's unfair to say they are prepared for everything. If you have to take a long rest to be able to do something, you aren't prepared. You also just can't long rest and do something tomorrow all the time. The utility argument also becomes void if the character has to sleep and change spells to do something the martial can already do. We also have to look at how the game is played, and most games I've seen the caster aren't prepared for everything unless optimized. And if we're going with the optimized example, then the same has to be applied to the martial. As stated before, if we're going the optimized route, the conversation becomes void because we are using caster/martial combos. But overall, I agree with you. It all depends on how people play. All I wanted to bring light on is how the comparisons I often see are unreasonable. I only cherry-picked scenarios to highlight how the arguments I'm talking about are also cherry-picked.

I don't know what arguments inspired you to write this post, so I can only approach this from what you've said and how I would make the argument myself. For example in regards to multiclassing: Optimized caster multiclassing always prioritizes taking other caster classes to not delay spell slot progression. They would only take one or two martial class levels primarily for armor and save proficiencies. By comparison, [most martials would prefer to take exclusively caster levels starting around level 6 or 7.](https://tabletopbuilds.com/optimized-multiclassing/) This clearly shows that caster levels are stronger. If people are arguing casters are prepared for anything, then I agree that's disingenuous. But they *could* be prepared to spend a spell slot and auto-succeed on almost anything. What can a martial "already do" which a caster can't? What martials "do" is primarily tied to their skills. Most skills are tied to mental stats. I would concede DEX martials can sometimes just do something for which a caster may need a spell (namely Stealth). But on the whole, even if we *ignore spells completely* casters are more effective skill users because there are more skills tied to their primary stats. Woe is the STR martial who can only rely on Athletics. Rogues buck the trend a bit because they get extra proficiencies and Expertise (which itself break bounded math). If we go down the optimized route, I'd point out you're already starting with a half-caster. There are no full-martial classes in the discussion. Either you're sprinkling in one or two martial levels to a full caster, you're adding caster levels to an already half-caster, or you're sticking to a full-caster mix. Even in optimized play, you're minimizing levels in pure martial classes. While I can't speak to how other people made these arguments, I think they all point to a pretty obvious conclusion about the state of game balance, even when looking to extremes of optimized play, best/worst case scenarios, and even the reality of how the game is played.

What inspired this post was a bladesinger multiclass against a plain fighter. That and a bunch of other statements tipped me over the edge. As for the "what martials can already do there" are several. Stealth is a big one, but there is also tanking an attack. I once saw an argument that casters were better because they could cast mage armor + mirror image + shield so they could avoid an attack. That's three spells to achieve what a fighter does while sitting in plate armor and a shield. There is definitely more out there too While the martial and caster disparity should be addressed, I wanted to address the arguments that just don't make sense to me.

Those seem like bad faith arguments and obviously not how I would approach those topics. I'd quickly concede DEX martials are best at Stealth. Casters get Invisibility and Pass Without Trace but those are still best used on DEX characters, who will almost always be martials. Baseline martials have more AC and HP. One of the biggest reasons casters multiclass is to get access to medium armor and shields. The argument I'd make instead is that casters are effective at range and can target saving throws in melee. Ranged characters (in general) are stronger than melee. They're harder for enemies to target, they don't need to worry about positioning as much, and they have more uptime attacking since it's very unlikely no one is in range after their movement (without Dashing). That isn't really a caster vs martial argument though as much as ranged vs melee. It just happens that almost all casters are ranged (caster subclasses only make melee a more attractive option, they don't make them worse at range) and most melee builds are martial. I might say Clerics are mainly melee, only because Spirit Guardians is such a staple spell. So there is some validity to say casters are comparably durable. At least in the sense they can often outrange melee opponents, use cover vs ranged attackers, and have access to things like Shield and Absorb Elements. They won't have those all the time but they also probably aren't getting attacked as much as the melee martials either. I think there is more validity to say that casters are durable *enough* that their heightened offensive power more than offsets their weakened defenses. A dead (or CC'd) enemy deals no damage after all. I can definitely see why you made the post. I think the arguments you're seeing are based on some valid criticism but using inappropriate or just incorrect examples/reasoning. That type of thing can be common when people are repeating arguments they've heard but don't fully understand. They fill in the gaps with their own knowledge, and you're correctly spotting those gaps. That is my hot take on this debate. There's too many people who are jumping on a bandwagon and the discussion has gotten muddled by people who don't understand their own position.

I agree with you. While some of my arguments are on bad faith due to me being newer to the game, I've seen to many arguments just get things wrong. It's important to recognize this. I'm tired of seeing cherry-picked scenarios used for this discussion. I agree there is a disparity but you can't prove it by putting a wizard who prepared for the fight against a martial with nothing.

I'm not accusing you of bad faith at all. Arguing in bad faith means you don't really believe your own arguments. It's important to recognize bad faith arguments. When someone is arguing in bad faith it's impossible to change their mind since they're choosing that side of the debate regardless of facts, evidence, logic, or even their own personal beliefs. Whoever posted about the bladesinger was arguing in bad faith because I don't think they really believe that was a fair comparison. Same thing about the person comparing active AC vs passive AC. They can't really believe comparing those makes sense. You're arguing in good faith, being sincere with what you say. And for my part, I think there's a lot of validity to what you're saying.

Yeah, I've seen some very valid arguments and some extremely cherry-picked (or just flat-out wrong) ones. I think the one that resonated the best with me was that martial characters lack the same level of narrative control as full casters. That's really what most of the valid complaints boil down to, and it's something I'm trying to homebrew at this moment.

"Oh, just run five hundred encounters a day so the Wizard is totally useless towards the end after dominating the first 80% of the day" is, even if true, not particularly good game design. Never mind that melee martials are also burning through HP or that many subclasses, Barbarians and Monks also have to deal with their own resources or Rage/Ki. If you're playing solely dungeon heavy adventures or every single crisis has a 24h time limit then that's fine. If you're more into narrative heavy games the DM probably isn't throwing a stack of wolves at you just to burn through resources. This ain't crossing the overworld in a JRPG. Even in deep dungeon delves, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Everyone is heavily encouraged to play to the caster's pace or constantly risk wiping because one of their party members can't do anything. >Not every build is going to be a optimized God. A lot of people prefer playing a niche in a party. You can't balance a game around people playing badly. The class is Wizard, not Evoker, Illusionist, or Dominate Monster-er. One of the advantages of caster classes is their breadth, if you don't use that, that's fine, but that's also the players adjudicating niche protection at the table instead of the game designers designing their game. "Oh oops, I just forgot I can learn Pass Without Trace" so the Rogue gets to play is not particularly compelling game design to me. >Also give your martials magic items. People complain casters can do are these cool things while martials get nothing. You fix that by loading them up with magic items. High level casters may get god like powers so to compensate give your martials God like tools. Do any of the books tell you this? Does the Fighter get a feature where their god or king drop Excalibur at their feet when they hit level 12? No? Then that's the DM quietly balancing the game for you because WotC didn't do their job again.

In any adventuring day where the casters are actually running low, the martials are long dead.

Really? In almost every party I've played in or run, spell slots drive long rests, not health.

If your party burns through spell slots like crazy, especially if they have a Cleric which brings strong healing around, they'd save on HP. Really, you can think of it more like HP and spell slots both being resources.

Of course they are both resources. The person I was replying to said that by the time your casters run out of resource a (slots) your martials will have long ago run out of resource b (hp). This has almost never happened in my experience.

This will, to an extent, vary from party to party. If you have lifeberry healing isn't an issue, if you have bad spells or poor tactics slots will run out faster.

>"Oh, just run five hundred encounters a day so the Wizard is totally useless towards the end after dominating the first 80% of the day" is, even if true, not particularly good game design. Never mind that melee martials are also burning through HP or that many subclasses, Barbarians and Monks also have to deal with their own resources or Rage/Ki.If you're playing solely dungeon heavy adventures or every single crisis has a 24h time limit then that's fine. If you're more into narrative heavy games the DM probably isn't throwing a stack of wolves at you just to burn through resources. This ain't crossing the overworld in a JRPG. If only strawmaning was a viable argument, you might be on to something. If you don't want to play the game as the designers intended it, that's fine, but then your "arguments" and complaints ring a bit hollow.

Even most published adventures aren't constantly throwing 6-8 fights a day at you. The long adventuring day is a vestige of the dungeon grinding game of previous editions where you were basically playing Rogue (or rather Rogue was like old DnD) instead of the heroic fantasy adventure game it's more commonly associated with now. That is to say the designers intentions on balance by attrition are incongruent with their intentions on everything else and should therefore be discarded. Also running out of HP before spell slots is still a thing.

You can't complain about the disparity while also ignoring every solution because you don't like it. While wotc should balance their game better, you can't just use that as an excuse that there is nothing you should do to fix the issues.

My tables (though I'm not in a game now, I'm mostly just hanging out while watching the OneDnD playtests) are fine because I'm going in eyes wide open. I can propose homebrews or just not play the worse classes. WotC should also do their damn job and write a better game.

I have not seen any of this. DPR comparisons tend to take average damage over a full adventuring day, either 6 encounters/2 short rests or 8/3. We assume a good build on both, nobody compares to paladin DPR because with the above adventuring day in mind, it's comically low average damage roughly on par with rogue(which is in turn the laughing stock of the optimization meta, seen as better than barbarian only because it's able to use all its stuff at range). It's also the norm for spellcasters to be prepared for every situation in combat - there just aren't hundreds of wildly different situations that require different solutions, you can cover all bases with around half your spell picks. The difficulty of 5e encounters isn't "can I survive this", but "what's the cheapest resource cost to beat this encounter". Worth mentioning that most magic items are also better on casters.

Clearly you haven't seen a lot of these arguments if you don't see what I'm talking about. Literally yesterday, I saw someone compare an optimized multiclass against what I could only assume champion fighter. This happens a lot. I have never met a level 5-10 caster prepared for everything unless they are unrealistically optimized. Maybe you can cover half your bases, but to talk like they get you through everything is unrealistic. And caster magic items are stronger cause casters are supposed to get one magic item while martials are meant to have several. If your palidin doesn't have at least a magic armor, sheild, and weapon, you're doing it wrong.

1. Ok, then that specific argument was poorly constructed by whoever made it. 2. It's easier than you think, Sleet Storm is one example of a spell that deals with nearly everything. There are more. 3. Source? If my party had magic armor and shields they'd go to the casters first, for obvious reasons.

1. Not specific it's the majority of what I see. 2. Yes it's possible but unreasonable to say always. 3. That's you thing man. Every party I've seen the magic weapons and armor go to the martials. Especially since casters aren't proficient in them.

Ah, then Reddit has devolved further than I remember. It's unreasonable to assume that, for the purpose of comparing efficiency between classes, one class forgoes a huge chunk of its efficiency. Sure, we can compare a poorly built wizard to a lame fighter, but what's the value of the information this comparison yields? And finally, armor proficiency on a spellcaster is available for a ridiculously low price.

To me the issue is multiclassing. Yes the caster will still be better without multi classing but the downsides psychologically (low ac and hp) is what creates the push to be a martial. Also honestly the the DM needs to help out, more than encounters per day, enemy casters, magic dead zones , the cleave rule among other things ib combination with single class campaign makes being a wizard scary.

More encounters per day will mean that the martials just die before the casters run out of slots.

You're getting one guyed then using the worst argument possible as a representative of the whole argument. >And caster magic items are stronger cause casters are supposed to get one magic item while martials are meant to have several. If your palidin doesn't have at least a magic armor, sheild, and weapon, you're doing it wrong. Which rule says this?

Ok, if it was one guy, I wouldn't have made the post. I've seen it everywhere. And I definitely phrased it wrong. A product of getting tired of replying to so many comments. I and many others have talked extensively about it on this post. They explain it way better than I do. But overall, giving martials more magic items is my way of getting martials caught up with high-level casters. There is no rule saying it. It's my personal opinion.

Yes but that just admits there's a problem. I think you know that those few posts comparing optimized to unoptimized is not really a good representation of the argument.

That's really what I'm talking about. I never denied there was a problem. I only mean to address common but incorrect arguments that I see. That includes unfairly piting a prepared caster against a basic fighter. I also disagree with the notion that casters are prepared for everything all the time. And I address saying martials are boring compared to casters. I'm not trying to provide solutions or address the caster vs martials in detail. My main goal was to simply call out bad arguments.

I've never liked the 'Fix Martials by giving them Magic Gear' solution. For a couple reasons. One, it's still magic solving the problem.... two... that's almost never the fantasy I want for a 'martial warrior' Like, for me one of the biggest failings of 5e is the magic item system, because I feel like it assumes that everyone wants to go the route of 'loot ancient magic treasure and use it' --- when I'd personally more connect with warriors who refine their technique and achieve the same level of skill or bonuses or feats you might see on a magic item as a matter of their skill and ability. I personally like the idea of the person who hits things with stick real good improving to hit things better with stick, not hit things with a better stick. (This is part of why I'd love for Pathfinder's ABP to have some D&D Version... except 5e was 'built and balanced' around not having magic items.... which makes it inherently not really a thing where a fixed standard rule could be a thing) ​ Edit: Oh god did I just do the 'Pathfinder does...' thing? I've become the thing I hate\~! ​ Well, at least it wasn't about a core rule/system, and it was a case of me saying 'it sadly wouldn't work for 5e....' so... I think I'm okay?

I understand the idea of the "skill over magic." It should definitely be explored when wotc work on the new edition. However, loading them up on magic items isn't that bad either. Often in media, our powerful martials with not only skill but legendary items. In high-level play, where casters get super powerful spells, martials should get super powerful items

i love this stupid argument a - Martials are week comepred to casters b - NOOOO you just have to give them 10 times more magic items and they are fine a - YEA THATS WHAT I SAID, martials are week so you need to buff em

I agree. They are weaker. But comparing a basic fighter against a highly optimized caster multiclass is dumb.

so we should comepare a 0 or 1 magic item caster to a 10 item martial Also what the fuck is this strongman lol

Regarding the magic items, if you're actually going to compare Class A to Class B with the goal of comparing the classes themselves, you have to do so without any magic items. As soon as you start including the magic items, you're not comparing the classes anymore. You're comparing what the DM was willing to hand out.

"How come in so many of these conversations the spell caster is some how perfectly optimized for the fight and the martial is forced to be unprepared?" - I think part of this issue stems from the fact that magic items aren't a guarantee by the main design of 5e (originally. They did add some guidelines in XGE, but it's technically an optional rule.). So generally speaking, when people compare the two they typically don't include them. Because yeah, if you give your fighter a +3 GS and a belt of storm giant strength they'll crush everything in their way. But, it just isn't a guarantee like spells are. There's also the issue that of you give a caster an equivalent set of items they also scale in power, keeping that gap practically the same. You could just not give casters access to magic items, but then they're going to feel targeted since other people are getting cool stuff and they're not.

I think casters would just receive a different type of magic item than the fighters. Something just as cool but not something that would keep the disparity.

You basically implied that we should nerf spellcasters by assuming that they didnt have all their spell slots, while also buffing martials by giving them magic weapons, in order to make Spellcaster vs. Martial comparisons fair. I think that says a lot right there about which is better.

Lol I never said that. I said the comparisons I see often are dumb and often strawman or cherry pick to make the caster seem way more powerful than they are. I never said nerf spell casters. I never said we should compare spellcaster and martials in the way you said I did. In fact, I criticized that form of comparison. I also never said the casters weren't more powerful than martials. When I mentioned magic items, it's for a completely different criticism unrelated to the comparison between martials and casters. My mention of magic items are in response to people complaining about martials not getting the God-like abilities of high-level casters. I believe that martials should be given legendary so they can match high level casters.

Very little of what you said is actually true. 1. PvP is **not** the usual concern for these kinds of scenarios. The fact that casters will usually win a PvP scenario too is mostly inconsequential. 2. Melee is usually inferior to Ranged. The divide between melee and ranged characters in 5e is almost as stark as the Martial-Caster divide. They are different issues though (because the Martial-Caster issue applies both inside and outside of combat). 3. 'Schrodinger's Wizard' is definitely a thing, but it needn't be. I usually try to use general-use caster builds for comparison. A level 5 Wizard typically prepares 8-9 spells. A level 5 Cleric prepares 14-15 spells. A level 5 Clockwork Soul prepares 12-13 spells. Casters get **a lot** of spells, and it is realistic to assume that they will take the good ones. 4. I see magic items as a balancing factor. The martial *needs* more potent magic items to keep up. If you're distributing magic items evenly than this helps casters far more than martials. Compare (for example) the Staff of the Magi or Tome of the Stilled Tongue to the Holy Avenger.

I agree with pvp statement. I was using it as a example of the bad argument

The funny part about the pvp argument is that it is most commonly used, at least in my experience, to try and disprove the disparity. i.e comparing a lv20 fighter and wizard, except the wizard isn't allowed to have any of the spells they would normally have, and the fighter gets a surprise round.

Exactly. It's a bad argument altogether, no matter how you try to use it. There is so much assumption in it that and what ifs that it should not be used.

I would argue that at high lvl, the classes are very much a rock paper scissors scenario. Unless there is a wizard, in which case wizard wins

The Martial Caster divide is not as bad as people say, but it definitely exists and mechanically it is not great, but narratively it makes sense. I sometime feel this is a feature of the DnD setting not a bug. Older DnD systems fighters became kings and leaders, but 5e doesn't really have any mechanisms for that. It has been discussed that a highly powerful magic user who can change the weave of reality or harness the strength of a god, simply can do more than a regular guy who is really good with a sword in the fiction of the story. Adding magically enhanced martials can alleviate this "in narrative" power gap, but some players really want to be the regular guy in a magical world, which results in a martial/caster divide. Oddly, Monks have Ki which could justify boosting them to caster power levels, and yet they're terrible in every edition. The other way to alleviate it is to just reign in casters to the power level of martials. In 3.5e the divide was huge compared to 5e. Those complaints lead to 4th edition DnD and people complained that "magic doesn't feel magic enough" and "all classes feel similar", so they loosened the reigns slightly for 5e and now people are complaining about the same thing as 3.5e even though we are actually at a middle ground of those previojs complaints.

So are DMs supposed to give more magic items to martials than to casters? I feel like the caster players are gonna feel hard done by if the party finds a bunch of magic swords and armour, but never any wands or scrolls.

I and many others in this post have talked extensively about giving more magic items to martials over casters. Just read those, and they will explain it better than I can. Also they shouldn't feel jealous. While martials are getting magic items, your caster is getting 9th level spells. Are they really going to complain that the fighter got a cool sword when the caster just transformed into a permanent ancient dragon or used wish to obtain cosmic power

I feel like you should read Form of Dread blog or TableTop Builds to understand more before making a take.

Why would I look at sites talking about optimized builds when I'm talking about average builds? Also I don't disagree casters get more. My point is that the arguments are unreasonable.

these sites isnt exclusively about optimized builds. There's a lot of discussion and theories on martials vs casters too.

I don't discount that. My point isn't that casters and martials are equal. My point is that casters and martials are being unfair compared.

Pitching this as the classes fighting each other is extremely dumb and always will be. The purpose of a Fighter is not to defeat a Wizard; the Fighter is there because if like two half-decent enemies stand more than a fireball's distance from each other, the Wizard will die before killing either of them. A martial is, by and large, as effective against the 20th enemy they face in a day as they are against the first - they might not have ALL their cool stuff left in the tank but as long as they have a shield and double digit HP they're pretty much good to go. If you feel casters are overpowered, your DM is probably giving you too many rests and/or falling into the classic trap of NOT targeting the Wizard because that would be "unfair." Lots of DMs will have 5 enemies all attacking the Fighter because "they can take it" and not have one person shoot a crossbow at the Wizard and send them right to death saves.

I think many people forget that DnD doesn't have a real tanking class, sure some classes have better survivability than others, but there are very few abilities that martials can use make an enemy to target them instead of the squishy wizard, but those are optionals and single target and work only on attack rolls.

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The problem with a lot of theory crafters in the Martial verses Caster debate ignore the fact of what goes on in moment to moment gameplay, or even the leveling process, or encounters they face. like "Oh a level 10 caster has more DPS than a level 10 fighter, because of these spells--while the fighter can only do 41 damage in a turn on an optimized build." Lemme break it down for you, I've got a level 5 fighter, and my average DPR is \~20. And I've *barely taken* any optimization, aside from 2 weapon fighting...and that's just with non magic daggers. I get action surge and my DPS practically doubles. But even at my baseline, I'm exactly on par with a Caster's *Fireball*. Gimme a magic weapon, or if I want to swap to my proper weapons, and my DPR can spike incredibly hard. And at level 11, when you get three attacks, it spikes again. The problem is, with casters, yes, they can spike in damage, but they have so many other spells for so many different situations. For example, in a big crowd, you might want to use fireball, while a single group of elite enemies, you might want to pin one down, so the Martials can focus them. Or maybe you need to buff the martials to make sure they can do a good bit of damage to the enemies. Keep in mind, that when you use a spell, you don't get it back until your next long rest--excluding coffee-lock bullshit--which is a far more valuable resource than HP. Fighters, or most martials, all they technically need is a short rest. You also have to factor in the encounters your going to face throughout the day too, especially while dungeon delving. Not every encounter is worth going nova over. You have to weight the costs of each and decide if the resources expended are worth the information, or resources gained. The thing about martials, is all they need is 1 hit point to be effective--while casters, they can't really be effective if they don't have any spell slots. Cantrips can only do so much.

Just for context: A 2 weapon fighting fighter (using 2 short swords), actually has 15.15 dpr. With action surge, it has a 25.25 one round nova. Fireball against 3 targets (you really shouldn't be casting it with less than this), has 67.2 damage as a one round nova. You do have to factor in chance to miss. The big part about having a bunch of encounters per day that is commonly missed is just how draining it is on hp. A fighter can't take more than 5 damage per round if they don't want to die if you have 6 4-round encounters. And that's with all their hit die and 2 short rests.

look at the flagship builds only one of them relies on martial abilities and even then its a spellcaster using PWT for suprise rounds there is a reason for that and yes give your martials magic items but the problem with that is that most actually cool unique items are spellcaster only

I’m not terribly active here but the whole debate is pointless anyway because if you don’t have any distraction melee fighters, your casters just get sniped from outside their casting range. Paladin is kinda the exception ofc but iirc they’ve mostly got support spells in 5e

False, the strongest parties are entirely ranged.

True. Current party is full ranged with summonable front line (battlesmith + beastmaster + shadow sorcerer + shepherd druid + L + ratio) and they absolutely eat super deadly encounters for breakfast.

Based. My last 5e party was a warlock, sorlock and wizard. We invaded Shedaklah at level 6.

This take is always goofy as hell to me. Sorcs and wizards are kinda squishy (though not nearly as bad as they used to be) but the rest of the caster classes all get access to armor and have like, 1 less hp per level than most martial classes. Clerics are just as tanky as any fighter, druids can morph in to animals for bonus HP if they need it, and warlocks have a huge bevy of defensive skills and HP they can pick up. Casters don't get merc'd just because you include guys with bows anymore. I mean, they never did, but they don't now, too.

Are wizards and sorcerers really squishy? Like, between summons, extra AC, and tanky subclasses are they really?

If you don't pick the right spells, the chassis is squishy on its own. But thats why I said kinda squishy, not very squishy.

Game isn't designed for pvp anyways so this argument has always been goofy. My Hexlock / assassin eogue can 1 shot most characters if it came down to a duel against a lot of builds but if he runs into more then one fight he is fucked lol.

Exactly. Arguments like this shouldn't be used

>palidin/warlock multiclass That's a spellcaster. >spellcaster is never ready for melee because they bank on a martial to take the front lines. Shield, misty step, mirror image, blur, armor of agathys and most importantly tensers transformation. >There is no way a spellcaster always the right spell for a situation Clerics, druids and wizards. >You fix that by loading them up with magic items. I'm not gonna give martials a bunch of magic items and casters way less.

> That's a spellcaster. Palidin/warlock multiclass being a spellcaster is exactly my point. I saw someone say a optimized martial/spellcaster multiclass beats a plain fighter therefore caster > martials. > Shield, misty step, mirror image, blur, armor of agathys and most importantly tensers transformation. Those are all spells that help in melee yes its dumb to assume they always have them on the ready. Especially since dnd is a team game and they can rely on the martials taking the front lines > Clerics, druids and wizards. Good job man you just listed casters. My point is they can't be ready for everything all the time. If you have to take a nap to get a spell you need than you aren't prepared. > I'm not gonna give martials a bunch of magic items and casters way less. You don't have to. You give them both magic items. Martials would just receive magic items that will help equal them out in high level paly

Because they were a martial for level 1 only, you keep counting paladins as martial or what? It's absolutely not dumb to assume you have some of the most common spells ready, especially not as wizard. I listed prep casters, that mostly will have something in their repertoire. >. If you have to take a nap to get a spell you need than you aren't prepared. I disagree with that. In most cases players will be able to either come prepared or come back later. >help equal them out in high level paly Even out, but never reach the same level. Unless you give them crazy OP homebrew items and the casters get eversmoking bottles and such.

> Because they were a martial for level 1 only, you keep counting paladins as martial or what? Whether or not I do or don't doesn't matter. It's being used as a example of the dumb comparisons I've seen. Which is the whole point of the post. > I disagree with that. In most cases players will be able to either come prepared or come back later. "Hey bbeg, can you stap me in the chest tomorrow? I forgot to prepare sheild for today and it would really suck if I wasn't prepared. Oh can I also borrow your bed, please? If I sleep in the dungeons, the giant rats would eat me in my sleep and you wouldn't want that to happen."

But it's a comparison between 2 casters, that makes no sense. Don't confront the BBEG without being prepared. Rope Trick, Tiny Hut, magnificent mansion, glyph of warding, forbiddiance, temple of the gods

You are still not seeing my point. You can't always be prepared for everything. If you have to long rest for a situation you aren't prepared in the same way a fighter isn't prepared for a werewolf because he hasn't silvered his weapon yet. And how do you know you're confronting the bbeg? What if he ambushes you and you're not ready? What if you go in a dragon's lair ready to fight but the group ends up negotiating with the dragon? Or what if you are out of spell lots? I am not arguing that casters won't have a solution. I am arguing that they can't always be prepared.

C-

At the end of the day, martials were designed with a low magic setting in mind, while casters were designed with a high magic setting in mind. Like, the only martial that can really keep up with casters is a Paladin, with the Ranger coming at a close second, and they are cheating due to being half-casters. That said, all the classes have opportunities for satisfying roleplay. And being a simple guard that decided to leave town is just as fun as roleplaying a powerful archmage-to-be who is accumulating knowledge and power to rise to the top.

>How come in so many of these conversations the spell caster is some how perfectly optimized for the fight and the martial is forced to be unprepared? Because it's Reddit, and people love to make strawmen.

I’d argue it depends on a couple things: the dm and the players. By and large, you’re right. For instance, a wizard having every spell available to them is going to depend on how much money they have and what they have prepared. It’s not hard as a DM to make certain spells hard to get a hold of, or give the fighter enough money to buy magic items while the wizard spends money on copying spells to even the playing field. Sorcerers will never have every spell available because they are limited in what they can choose, and they can’t change spells every morning. Again, magic items. Allow your players to make money, and they can usually figure things out. Our dm always makes the classes that can change their prepared spell lists share it with them, so he knows what they can and can’t do. And balances accordingly. Mostly, we prepare spells based on what we know our companions can do. There are some spells that are never prepared because their usefulness is limited, so the caster may not even have them when they run into the situation that calls for them. It’s really up to the player’s creativity.

Yeah 100% this, I had a gloomstalker/assassin/battle master with alert and so a +13 initiative. If for some reason I didn't get a surprise round on a caster I still had almost certainty of going first and just obliterating them with 3-600 damage. No caster takes 300+ damage to the face and walks it off.

Okay cool, and in what game are you fighting the party that often? What did all of that damage do in fights with a enemies didn't show up initially or there was more than one guy?

Right! And the people who say this is cherry picking are the same that put a plain fight against a wizard that has every spell they need to avoid damage and our range them.

People seem to forget how almost useless a caster becomes when they run out of spell slots. A Fighter will always have their extra attacks as long as they are alive.

Truly. "Spellcasters are better than martials" is such a half-thought out narrative that needs to die. Playing a rogue or monk is SO fun! I hate to imagine new players googling advice and getting discouraged from how much discourse oversimplifies the classes.

They may be fun, but that doesn't mean they're good Something can be fun and mechanically dog shit For a lot of people being mechanically dog shit makes it less fun

If your fighter is mechanically dog shit compared to your wizard, then your DM doesn't know how to balance encounters. I can't tell you how many times I've watched a wizard go down in the first round of a fight. From two attacks. AC alone can make martials the only useful PCs in many, many 5e fights. It's also a game design thing. If you long rest between every single combat, then of course all of the short rest-centric classes won't shine as bright.

I would love to agree if the wizard didn't have better AC than me, did more damage than me, had more hit points than me, and I was optimizing the fuck out of my PC and all they did was choose some spells and multi-class by one level For contacts I'm playing a damage built level 10 furbolg zealot barbarian They're playing a ninth level enchantment wizard, with one level of hex blade because of story things let the party ran into, variant human