D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[Vaalingrade]

I think we could just do away with ASIs and I would be ok.

Having feats compete with ASIs is not something I like. In my game I give the characters both.

Sometimes, it becomes clear that despite our disagreements... We are not so different, you and I.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It’s also worth noting that most spells are pretty bad or nothing special. At least most of the time. It’s really a handful of spells that really push things over the top.

Yeah, some spells are highly situational. The more versatility casters have in bringing the best spell for the situation, the less of a mitigating factor that is. TSR era, with everyone memorizing into slots and scrolls mostly found treasure, it was a consideration. 3e with spontaneous and prepped casters, make/buy wands and wizards scribing spells from first level, even the most situational spells might sit on a scroll for a while, until that blue moon rose. 5e, with everyone casting spontaneously & having at-will cantrips, but no make/buy? It's an awfully high degree of flexibility - but it can't be quite as nuts as a 3e batman wizard, with every spell he doesn't habitually prepare on a scroll - tho, 5e.2014 does let you cast rituals from your book, and 5e.2024 playtest has tested a mechanic that lets you swap a prepped spell in 1 min.

And, that case has been made, prettymuch every edition, and next ed, a problem spell or few get nerfed, and a few more emerge or come back ... not always, like, oh, they were always that way, now it shows, I mean, like, what 5e did to Tiny Hut.

 

[ECMO3]

It's easy to see how that implies maximizing the number and variety of choices....

....but choices that are both meaningful and viable?

Well that is the key isn't it? I feel like most of the choices available are meaningful and if played at the recommended difficulty level almost all are viable with average ability rolls on any character. You have to both roll really bad during character creation AND make really bad choices to have a PC that is not viable in 5E.

5e presents a lot of choices in spells, a fair number in feats, and significantly fewer in race/class and sub-class. They're not exactly equally viable choices, tho.

There is a big difference between equal and viable. Almost all of them are viable, and a lot of them are meaningful.

There are a select few subclasses and feats that are not meaningful and could be described as traps, but even most of those are still generally viable.

Moreover when you can't really look at equivalence across subclasses since class mechanics are different. For example Rune Knight, Eldritch Knight and Echo Knight as subclasses are more powerful than any Wizard subclasses, yet no one is concerned about the weakness of the Wizard subclasses.

Moar feats earlier does let every character be a little more customized. It also reduces the relative value of the Fighter's two bonus feats at 6th and whatever that higher level is that people don't generally play to....

Not really. It depends on level. It does reduce the relative value of the extra fighter feats if you play to very high level, but it does not reduce them at low level, especially before the fighter gets any feats.

Further feats at level 1 would let fighters (and other martials) get spell casting that is actually significant at that level. Magic Initiate for example gives a 1st level martial half the leveled spells and two-thirds of the cantrips of a full caster, and that is a boost to a class that is generally more powerful than the clothy casters at this level.

 

[nevin]

To give my perspective on why earlier editions were better balanced than 3e and 5e.

A 1st level Magic User has one spell at 1st level (two for a specialist). The saving throw of a HD creature against that spell is 17+. It'll probably land on most of a group (it's 19 for sub-1 HD creatures like kobolds). Throw your spell and you'll have an impact from it.

At 5th level that M-U has five spells, and some of them are more powerful (you have two 2nd level and one 3rd level spell slot). And if you're going at 5HD enemies they save on a 14+. About 1/3 of your targets will save. You've more spells, but the chance that they won't work is starting to be significant.

And at 18th level when you get your first 9th level spell, saving throws for most monsters of the level your character is are 6+. Anyone expecting to cast Dominate Monster and have a creature that can replace a front-line warrio, well you've got about one chance in four of it working. Not a great gamble.

And that's a primary balancing factor. By the time you're got enough spells to be using them regularly, a lot of targets have got a 50% chance or better to save against them. And that's what 3e did away with, and the 5e design deliberately chose to imitate 3e. And that they're certainly going to do again. Ensuring that Wizards not only get more power as they level up in their own right, but everyone becomes less able to resist them.

Dont forget that assasain's could kill mages just as easily as anyone else. Paladins with holy swords had Magic Resistance of a flat 50 if they had the same level as the mage and that magic resistance was on a sliding scale. +or - 5% of level difference. So if monster/pc's/npc's had more levels than mage Magic Resistance got much much worse. Everything in the game had a counter. 3rd edition took that away.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I feel like most of the choices available are meaningful and if played at the recommended difficulty level almost all are viable with average ability rolls on any character.

Meaningful gets pretty subjective, I tend to agree, but I've heard people with a much higher bar of what's meaningful. Like, just everyone being on the same proficiency progression would get their hackles up.
Viable is less so, but it's still relative to both the challenges and the other characters. 5e gets a bad rap for being 'too easy' - I think maybe that's more a matter of the community's DMs' reaction to encounter design guidelines being so poor, err on the side of caution? - but, even if it is excessively easy, leaving inferior classes 'viable' relative to surviving expected challenges, they can still be rendered moot ('overshadowed') by OP classes, they're contributions simply not mattering makes then non-viable in the context of a cooperative game.

There is a big difference between equal and viable.

There isn't, really, equal or even identical choices could still be viable, might be, trivially so - if identical choice is viable, surely they all are!
They'll have a tough time with the whole meaningful thing, tho.

Not really. It depends on level. It does reduce the relative value of the extra fighter feats if you play to very high level, but it does not reduce them at low level, especially before the fighter gets any feats.

If you're playing with class/level as the only way to get feats (no V'umans or CLs), then, at 6th, the fighter has 2 feats and everyone else 1. The value of double the feats as everyone else has, even if that 2nd feat is very much a second-best/second-choice, is pretty nearly, well, double (and, if it's a feat that synergizes with the first, watch out!).
But, say, everyone gets a feat at first, now, at 6th, everyone has those 2 synergistic feats, and the fighter's bonus feat is a 3rd-string choice, it's come down in relative value, significantly, at best a 50% bonus, probably less.
As you go to higher levels, the value of the bonus feat is getting that 3rd-string feat 2 levels before eveyone else at 8th, then a 4th choice 4 levels early.... that's lower and lower value, but it's a smaller and smaller relative difference with each feat that's added.

It's a function of the way 5e.2014 presents feats w/o level gating or trees. 5e.2024 promise to improve that a bit, which will add some nuance to the timing of the fighter's bonus feats (like if minimum level for feats is by Teir, 6th is early Tier 2, and that'll be nice, but if an awesome feat is min level 7, ), but it'll still be, like, getting a bonus feat when everyone has 2 or 3 is just not as high-value as getting a bonus feat when everyone else only has 1.

 

[ECMO3]

Meaningful gets pretty subjective, I tend to agree, but I've heard people with a much higher bar of what's meaningful. Like, just everyone being on the same proficiency progression would get their hackles up.

If meaningful for you means optimal, then there are very few meanigful choices for you, but that is specific to you as a player.

Viable is less so, but it's still relative to both the challenges and the other characters.

The other characters are not really relevant IMO and being viable has more to do with ability scores than it does the choices you make.

There are weaker choices absolutely, but most of them are viable. A strength-based fighter who chooses a dagger is objectively weaker compared to the other fighter in the party who fights with a longsword, and if you really want to split hairs, the fighter with a longsword is objectively weaker than the one who chooses a warhammer. But all 3 characters are still viable. All three of these fighters will generally be successful and while they are objectively not equal it is unlikely their choice will result in failure.

To be not viable you would need to use a blowgun, or fight with a longsword when you have a low strength.

5e gets a bad rap for being 'too easy' - I think maybe that's more a matter of the community's DMs' reaction to encounter design guidelines being so poor, err on the side of caution? - but, even if it is excessively easy, leaving inferior classes 'viable' relative to surviving expected challenges, they can still be rendered moot ('overshadowed') by OP classes, they're contributions simply not mattering makes then non-viable in the context of a cooperative game.

They can be overshadowed by a lot of things and of those luck is the biggest in-game driver, with choices (both build and in-game) being a close second and mechanical design being a distant third place.

This argument also does not consider player personality. MANY players do not want to play the focus or leader or guy doing everything. MANY players are introverted and prefer a subdued role. You also have many players who are extremely extroverted and will overshadow other players regardless, the Barbarian with a 7 Charisma who needs to walk into every situation and act like the bull in the China shop.

I am playing in a game right now and my Monk with a 13 Charisma and no Charisma skill proficiencies is the party face. We have a Warlock with an 18 or 19 Charisma and skills, but the player does not like to do any of the social things. Occasionally if we anticipate we will need to make a tough check on a Charisma skill we will ask him to do it, but most of the time he does not want to "do the talking" for the group. The other two characters have a low Charisma FWIW.

If you're playing with class/level as the only way to get feats (no V'umans or CLs), then, at 6th, the fighter has 2 feats and everyone else 1. The value of double the feats as everyone else has, even if that 2nd feat is very much a second-best/second-choice, is pretty nearly, well, double (and, if it's a feat that synergizes with the first, watch out!).

Yes and I get what you are saying, 2 feats vs 1 is better than 3 feats vs 2, but that argument does not hold when you consider what feats do at this level.

This argument overlooks that at 6th level a feat matters more to a fighter (or any martial) than it does to a caster. A feat at this level is a bigger boost for a fighter or other martial than it is for a caster. The "second best" choice for a fighter is going improve the fighter more at this level than the first choice for a Wizard will improve the Wizard at this level.

But, say, everyone gets a feat at first, now, at 6th, everyone has those 2 synergistic feats, and the fighter's bonus feat is a 3rd-string choice, it's come down in relative value, significantly, at best a 50% bonus, probably less.

And the 3rd string at this level improves the fighter more than the Wizard is improved by the Wizard's second string at this level.

It's a function of the way 5e.2014 presents feats w/o level gating or trees.

This is something I love. I would hate to see us go back to a design like we had in 3E where you can't take most feats and I am not a fan of the tiered system in ONE either, even though it is far better than 3E was.

 

[FrogReaver]

This back and forth has started to bother me more as time has gone on, because it's fundamentally about competing aesthetics, not the balance discussion it gets tangled in. That's the ground on which one side or the other will push the superiority of their position, but I don't think it's what the argument is about. Instead, I think it's mostly about choosing which one of two design goals is held to be more important, even if everyone involve probably holds both goals.

You've got a position that hold's the game's primary design goal (at the level of class design) should be to validate the player's expressed aesthetic choices, that players should make aesthetic decisions separately from the effectiveness of those choices, and rely on the game to then offer them commensurate impact. It's a team game of fighters and wizards going into holes and fighting monsters together.

The other side tends to hold the game's ultimate goal is to mechanically express their aesthetic choices, and that the game achieves this with the diversity of expression in how different aesthetics are reified in the gameplay and fictional world. Magic works like this, fighting works like this, and you can see how they are different.

I don't know that anyone has gone out of their way to hold both of those things in parity.

Yea. For balance discussions you have to first rank aesthetic choices in order of importance. Otherwise you end up with a balanced but likely non tenable solution at least for those whose aesthetic choice rankings are very different. There’s many ways to balance after all. At the end of the day it’s about balance within a set of aesthetic choices.

It just seems so many people use the balance discussion to push for a particular set of aesthetic choices. ‘If you just change this aesthetic choice and do this they will balance’. ‘Well maybe but I’d rather change this other aesthetic preference and have them balance this way’.

But really aesthetic choice is the only tie breaker for balance.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yea. For balance discussions you have to first rank aesthetic choices in order of importance.

Balance is a mechanical thing, aesthetics are more a fluff thing. I can certainly see aesthetics, of mechanics, tho, like, elegance is partly that.

Is "wizards should just be strictly superior to fighters" an aesthetic thing? Is "this is a fantasy game, it should emulate the fantasy genre?"

There’s many ways to balance after all. At the end of the day it’s about balance within a set of aesthetic choices.

I mean, the must useful definition I've seen for balance is about presenting player choices that are meaningul, and viable.
The aesthetic goal of a game could easily constrain the range of choices, but shouldn't necessarily result in any of them being meaningless worthless, by itself.

 

[FrogReaver]

Balance is a mechanical thing, aesthetics are more a fluff thing. I can certainly see aesthetics, of mechanics, tho, like, elegance is partly that.

Is "wizards should just be strictly superior to fighters" an aesthetic thing? Is "this is a fantasy game, it should emulate the fantasy genre?"


I mean, the must useful definition I've seen for balance is about presenting player choices that are meaningul, and viable.
The aesthetic goal of a game could easily constrain the range of choices, but shouldn't necessarily result in any of them being meaningless worthless, by itself.

I don’t think your conception of aesthetic choice is nearly broad enough. You seem far too focused on one particular kind of aesthetic choice.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don’t think your conception of aesthetic choice is nearly broad enough. You seem far too focused on one particular kind of aesthetic choice.

So what are some examples of aesthetics that demand the player be presented with meaningless and/or non-viable choices?