One thing that infuriates me is when people reject things that, by the rules, should be fairly obvious. A first level cleric can, at will, stabilize even the most badly injured individual, purify fairly large amounts of food and water, and create modest amounts of clean drinking water, or instead of that, create temporary non-fuel-burning light sources. He's the go-to guy for emergency medicine and for night-time or bad weather search and rescue. "But that doesn't fit the setting! Clerics wouldn't treat their gods' gifts of grace so casually!" Why not? Their gods are the ones who allow such use, why would their priests be reluctant to use them when applicable? This isn't the (common perception of the) medieval Church, where everything bad was your own fault for being sinful. In a setting in which some gods are genuinely evil, the idea that maybe, just maybe, some evils are actually not the victim's fault could actually have some currency.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032630I've been mulling this one over since you posted it. I think there are issues with the wizard/fighter balance. While 5e fixed the whole 'a fighter is equivalent to one of the druid's class features' level of imbalance, it still isn't the old era where fighters shrugged off all spells at an insane capacity and could undoubtedly cream a wizard in a 1:1 fight (much of the time). OTOH, BITD, much of a fighter's power did come from the loot table (especially pre-rogues, when for the most part all those fancy swords with X/day powers were their providence alone). How much those items really affected the game depended on exactly how often they showed up.

In 5e, I guess the fighter is more dependent on magic items to do their job than a wizard is, since there are so many monsters resistant to non-magic weapons, but a wizard with a wand of fireballs is probably giggling like a madman just as much as the fighter that finds a flametongue sword. Particularly in this case where we are talking about whether or not the magic-users will probably take over, I don't know how much I see the fighter being left at the wayside.

I don't know about higher levels, because some of those upper level spells have always been game changers.  But up through about level 9, I think we are almost to something reasonable in current 5E.  A 1:1 confrontation between fighter and wizard has always been highly situational, and of course magic enters into that.  Invisibility and Fly spells make a big difference, unless the fighter has a few potions or something similar to compensate.  

However, I think the wizard now can probably afford, at most, one mistake.  Let the fighter get up in his grill one time, and it's all but over.  That extra attack at 5th level is nasty.  A reasonably smart fighter going after that wizard is going to ditch the shield and use an off-hand weapon--which while not nearly as powerful as in some editions, doesn't carry any penalties either.  It's just a little gravy when the fighter isn't using second wind.  Or the fighter is already using a two-handed weapon for extra damage (and when something like a long sword, that's a good move in this situation.)  And right when the wizard thinks that he survived the barrage, the fighter uses Action Surge to do all those attacks again.  Throw any kind of special magic weapon on top of that, and we are talking probably "dead wizard" instead of "seriously hurt wizard trying anything to get out of longbow range as soon as possible."  The wizard has more hit points than early D&D, but no way to artificially boost it as with 3E.  Having a great Con score is going to come at the expense of Dex, which isn't going to help matters any.

Of course, most wizards are going to do everything in their power to avoid getting into that situation, which is why the imbalance exists.  It is mainly their room for error that has narrowed.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032633That sort of thing only happens in D&D. Other fiction generally portrays magic and martial arts in a completely different manner. There are numerous fairy tales of witches or wizards taking over a kingdom only to die with embarrassing ease. In The Son of Seven Queens, the evil enchantress is simply executed. In Snow White, the evil queen is danced to death in red iron shoes. In the Arthurian mythos, Merlin (who put Arthur on the throne in the first place) is turned into a tree by his girlfriend/apprentice. Other times the magicians are stupid or gullible and tricked into offing themselves. In Puss in Boots the cat tricks an ogre mage into becoming a mouse and eats him, then claims the ogre's wealth and gives it to his owner. In Hansel and Gretel the children trick the child-eating witch and shove her into an oven. In pulp fiction, Conan the Barbarian regularly defeats wizards in combat even though he does not operate by D&D rules.

In fact, other fiction regularly portrays fighters (or other non-magic people) defeating giant monsters single-handedly, solving puzzles, outwitting evil wizards and performing physical feats impossible in reality. None of those things are possible in D&D when other equally impossible things are. Even if fighters can single-handedly defeat whole armies, they still cannot run up a wall or damage anything immune to non-magic weapons.

This is a true statement whose relevance to the subject I'm not grasping. D&D (and most-with-notable-exceptions fantasy RPGs) is exceptional in that it expects both (at least semi-) heroic mortal, martial characters, as well as break-the-normal-rules-of-the-universe wizards to coexist within an adventuring party and have some kind of parity (not defined the same in different editions, but such that all players don't fight over who has to be X and/or who gets to be Y). This makes it systematically different than genre fiction (be it pulp, myth, or fairy tale), where the wizard is easily fooled in to highlight the singular non-magical (but oh so clever) hero.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032630I've been mulling this one over since you posted it. I think there are issues with the wizard/fighter balance. While 5e fixed the whole 'a fighter is equivalent to one of the druid's class features' level of imbalance, it still isn't the old era where fighters shrugged off all spells at an insane capacity and could undoubtedly cream a wizard in a 1:1 fight (much of the time).

Well, in both 5e and 1e, high-level duels come down to "Does the wizard have Forcecage prepared, and did he win initiative?" At most stages of the game, a Fighter with a reasonably level-appropriate magic weapon will destroy a same-level wizard with an Action Surge. And IMO Indomitable should have been gaining proficiency in the other key saves...but it is what it is.

What 5e really fixed was wizards taking over combat at high levels. You gotta get rid of enemy hp, and nobody puts out hurt or soaks it up like a warrior class.

QuoteOTOH, BITD, much of a fighter's power did come from the loot table

So did a wizard's. Probably the biggest change WotC made was taking the discovery of spells completely out of the DM's hands, which is still around and still an issue.

Quotea wizard with a wand of fireballs is probably giggling like a madman just as much as the fighter that finds a flametongue sword

Flametongue is ridiculous. I gave one of those out once...it's nuts. I also never give out 5e-style wands because the new casting system combined with player-chosen spells at level up time makes them pretty superfluous.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032639This is a true statement whose relevance to the subject I'm not grasping. D&D (and most-with-notable-exceptions fantasy RPGs) is exceptional in that it expects both (at least semi-) heroic mortal, martial characters, as well as break-the-normal-rules-of-the-universe wizards to coexist within an adventuring party and have some kind of parity (not defined the same in different editions, but such that all players don't fight over who has to be X and/or who gets to be Y). This makes it systematically different than genre fiction (be it pulp, myth, or fairy tale), where the wizard is easily fooled in to highlight the singular non-magical (but oh so clever) hero.

My pet peeve is that wizards are allowed to replicate the spells of every genre fictional wizard and more, yet fighters are NOT allowed to emulate the feats of every genre fictional fighter, such as King Arthur, Gilgamesh, Cú Chulainn, Beowulf, and more.

I know people criticize Tome of Battle for being too anime, but these 100% Western heroes performed equally absurd stunts. Cú Chulainn jumped on darts being thrown at him, Beowulf chopped a dragon in half, King Arthur chopped a rider and his horse in half, and Gilgamesh never slept.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032642What 5e really fixed was wizards taking over combat at high levels. You gotta get rid of enemy hp, and nobody puts out hurt or soaks it up like a warrior class.

Is that a good solution? I was under the impression that magic-users render the martials superfluous.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032650My pet peeve is that wizards are allowed to replicate the spells of every genre fictional wizard and more, yet fighters are NOT allowed to emulate the feats of every genre fictional fighter, such as King Arthur, Gilgamesh, Cú Chulainn, Beowulf, and more.

I know people criticize Tome of Battle for being too anime, but these 100% Western heroes performed equally absurd stunts. Cú Chulainn jumped on darts being thrown at him, Beowulf chopped a dragon in half, King Arthur chopped a rider and his horse in half, and Gilgamesh never slept.

Got it! Sorry, I must be slow today. I will say that you are not wrong. Each edition has tried its' own fix. I think the solution that would best address this would be to make two discrete games-- one where warriors act fairly similar to the Robin Hoods of the genre but the wizards had to suffice with slow, unreliable, or miniscule impact magic and a separate one where warriors were chopping everything in half while wizards were re-writing the rules. Given that hundreds of RPGs (including D&D 4e) have come along to challenge the D&D status quo, this appears not to be a solution that will work (at least for what I will call the 'D&D base.' For everyone else, the problem was solved decades ago). The other option is to make it such that when the wizard actually hits the levels where they are rewriting the rules, the fighter is commanding armies and/or being able to single-handedly take them on. Various editions of D&D have done this, to varying levels of success.

 

QuoteIs that a good solution? I was under the impression that magic-users render the martials superfluous.

In a word, no. In 5e, a party never doesn't need martial classes. Nor does a spellcaster ever replace them. If you came away from 4e thinking it was the greatest thing ever and it solved all of D&D's problems and you just don't understand why everyone doesn't agree, I am sure 5e looks like more of the same old stuff we just escaped and why are we backsliding? But no, fighters are not rendered superfluous, nor rogues. There are still highly specific scenarios that a wizard can address that a martial without appropriate magic items (I guess effectively making them part magic user) literally can't resolve (usually problems up in the air that can't be solved by shooting them with arrows, and/or magic spells like curse and geas and the like that can only be resolved by another spell), and that's a legitimate criticism. I've only skimmed/started on this Librarians and Leviathans guy's article. It's a far cry more thought out than most of the 'martials can't have nice things' crowd, but it is still very white-room abstract and sets bizarre goalposts ("A level twenty fighter cannot kill a CR2 thug with a single critical hit"... Okay, that's true. Exactly what does that prove?). The article isn't explicitly wrong, certainly not the point about D&D trying to mash pulp and epic fantasy together, and that it's spellcasters who receive most of the epic, but to use that to conclude that 5e spellcasters make martials superfluous is... I guess just a case of theory overshooting reality.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1031569Name something that's very common to find in a D&D setting that you really don't care for. And, if explanation is needed, why.

The rules. They're usually a poor fit.

Quote from: Whitewings;1032637One thing that infuriates me is when people reject things that, by the rules, should be fairly obvious. A first level cleric can, at will, stabilize even the most badly injured individual, purify fairly large amounts of food and water, and create modest amounts of clean drinking water, or instead of that, create temporary non-fuel-burning light sources. He's the go-to guy for emergency medicine and for night-time or bad weather search and rescue. "But that doesn't fit the setting! Clerics wouldn't treat their gods' gifts of grace so casually!" Why not? Their gods are the ones who allow such use, why would their priests be reluctant to use them when applicable? This isn't the (common perception of the) medieval Church, where everything bad was your own fault for being sinful. In a setting in which some gods are genuinely evil, the idea that maybe, just maybe, some evils are actually not the victim's fault could actually have some currency.

Furthermore, in most D&D settings the gods get their power from the number of worshipers they have. What gets you worshipers faster? platitudes and non-intervention or performing honest to god (heh) miracles that aid the common people?

If I were a god in most D&D settings I'd be handing out the "help the common man" spells to my clerics like candy and punishing the clerics who didn't use them at every opportunity to grow my congregations.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032650Is that a good solution? I was under the impression that magic-users render the martials superfluous.

You know how sometimes you come across an article where the author clearly had never played the game? This is one of them.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032650Is that a good solution? I was under the impression that magic-users render the martials superfluous.

No, IME a 5e full caster does not render martial PCs superfluous even up in Epic Tier (17-20). The Barbarian class especially stacks up well at very high level; Rogue I think to a lesser extent. I built a BBEG as a level 20 Eldritch Knight, my players saw the stats and complained that he's unbeatable! I have one group that finished up with level 17 Cleric, level 18 Druid, and level 18 Barbarian; the Barbarian definitely did not feel superfluous. High level Shadow Monk also very powerful.

From your link:

A level twenty fighter cannot kill a CR2 thug with a single critical hit without some magical gear or spell to boost damage

A stupid criticism when the F20 gets at least 4 attacks/round and can get 8/round twice before short resting, while usually having a greatly superior AC to the Wizard IME. Martials do benefit from having magic weapons, but in 5e powerful magic weapons are cheap & plentiful unless you run a purposely low-magic game. An F20 with flametongue sword +2d6 dmg does enormous DPR - and easily hits anything in the MM, whereas magic resistance, legendary saves et al make the W20's work much harder than in 3e/PF.

When GMing high level NPC caster vs high level PC warriors, almost always the optimum action is to teleport/d-door away immediately. Even with all allowed buff spells up the caster can't survive for long anywhere near a high level martial PC. This is basically the same as Classic D&D, without the 20d6 fireballs vs 70 hp high level Fighters.

At 5 hit dice, 2 attacks per round, and easily gained advantage, a Thug is approximately equal to a weak 5th-level character. Even then, he'll last barely more than a round against 5th-level fighter. Furthermore, a CR-appropriate encounter  (we're talking "medium" encounter, which in 5e terms means nobody will die unless you're stupid or very unlucky) typically involves doing enough damage in 1 round to knock a wizard unconscious, whether solo  or group monsters.  Wizards are just extremely easy to kill across all levels.  I have frequently seen them go down to a dragon's opening breath attack.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032627In a typical D&D setting, a wizard is never getting powerful enough to case Fireball unless he partners with a warrior who simultaneously becomes powerful enough to shrug off a Fireball, then murder the offending wizard without much effort.

Sadly, this hasn't been true since late AD&D 2e and early 3.x and on.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032627I think it is something of a mistake that magic-users and warriors are no longer almost equally dependent on finding powerful items.

I don't know of earlier editions, but I know that in 2e and later, Wizards didn't.  To be fair, that divide jumped exponentially in 3.x.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032650My pet peeve is that wizards are allowed to replicate the spells of every genre fictional wizard and more, yet fighters are NOT allowed to emulate the feats of every genre fictional fighter, such as King Arthur, Gilgamesh, Cú Chulainn, Beowulf, and more.

I know people criticize Tome of Battle for being too anime, but these 100% Western heroes performed equally absurd stunts. Cú Chulainn jumped on darts being thrown at him, Beowulf chopped a dragon in half, King Arthur chopped a rider and his horse in half, and Gilgamesh never slept.

I criticize Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords for having too limited options to making 'Fighter' types impressive.  Honestly, Iron Heart (I think that's the name) was the most straightforward of them.  But none, absolutely none, allowed to be superhuman, which is the primary thing that a lot of fighting heroes are INCREDIBLY strong.  D&D has never let anyone be anything close.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1032650Is that a good solution? I was under the impression that magic-users render the martials superfluous.

Personal experience suggest that it's mostly true.  Shape shifter Druids, Life Clerics, Bards all make good back up Fighting men.  While the Casters (typically Wizard) is the real 'damage' dealer.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1032687At 5 hit dice, 2 attacks per round, and easily gained advantage, a Thug is approximately equal to a weak 5th-level character. Even then, he'll last barely more than a round against 5th-level fighter. Furthermore, a CR-appropriate encounter  (we're talking "medium" encounter, which in 5e terms means nobody will die unless you're stupid or very unlucky) typically involves doing enough damage in 1 round to knock a wizard unconscious, whether solo  or group monsters.  Wizards are just extremely easy to kill across all levels.  I have frequently seen them go down to a dragon's opening breath attack.

Don't use the Fighter's Attacks Per Round thing as anything other than the trap it is.  At 5th Level, a Monk can do 4 attacks per round, as can a Dual Wielding Hunter Ranger with Horde Breaker against multiple targets (i.e. more than 1.)  A fighter's extra attacks don't scale up in damage either, which means that a Hunter Ranger with a Hunter's Mark active can increase his damage above and beyond the base weapon, on every successful strike.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032700Honestly, Iron Heart (I think that's the name) was the most straightforward of them.  But none, absolutely none, allowed to be superhuman, which is the primary thing that a lot of fighting heroes are INCREDIBLY strong.  D&D has never let anyone be anything close.

There was a level 20 Barbarian in my 5e game who was certainly 'incredibly strong', STR 24 CON 24, 325 hit points & half damage while raging making that more like 650; he could easily solo ridiculously powerful monsters just like epic mythological warriors (his battle with a huge ancient black dragon was laughably easy). I saw similar running 1e too.

(His 500gp boots of striding & springing were handy for those superhero giant leaps)

I think the ivory tower stuff also misses one very important component in the comparison.  I've yet to see a 5E wizard that feels as if they can fully relax anywhere but in a fortified friendly location.  Sure, those players may be overestimating the dangers, but the way they can get mauled so quickly with physical attacks makes them nervous as cats at a square dance convention.  Conversely, I've seen more than a few fighters (and barbarians and paladins but not rangers) have the opposite problem--feeling 6 feet tall and bullet proof.  Of course, in my limited selection so far, that could easily be personality types self-selecting into those classes.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1032700Sadly, this hasn't been true since late AD&D 2e and early 3.x and on.

It's true in every edition except 3rd. That's a lot of editions, and a lot of settings.

QuoteI don't know of earlier editions, but I know that in 2e and later, Wizards didn't.

2e wizards don't need to find scrolls?

QuoteDon't use the Fighter's Attacks Per Round thing as anything other than the trap it is.  At 5th Level, a Monk can do 4 attacks per round

How does a Monk's Flurry of Blows power make the fighter's Extra Attack a trap? Is there some rule I'm missing where when the party's Monk spends a ki to make two bonus attacks, the Fighter is subject to Level Drain?

QuoteA fighter's extra attacks don't scale up in damage either, which means that a Hunter Ranger with a Hunter's Mark active can increase his damage above and beyond the base weapon, on every successful strike.

Hunter's Mark isn't "always on," and if you're using TWF, it's "frequently off."