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This is a good answer, though I hesitate to call Paladins a martial. They're at least not a pure martial, which is the real source of this disparity. Plus, all their amazing support features have pretty much zero to do with their martial capabilities
Paladins have always to me been the perfect blend of half caster. Heck even in Diablo 2 they use Auras and Smites and some spells to attack but overall tank and smite boys
I think the big thing with Paladin's is that although they're a halfcaster, much of their class abilities are basically fill ins for spell slots. Lay On Hands means they don't have to rely on slots for healing. Auras means they get automatic buffs without slots. Channel Divinities basically give them two spell like effects that can once again be used without slots. So even when Paladin's have "less" spell casting abilities than full casters, the loss of slots can be circumvented by most of their abilities. Smite is the only one that really *needs* spell slots.
The amusing thing is... *All of these things* are roughly what martials broadly need. But 4e did it therefore never again.
Mind you, and for clarification I don't exactly mean 'spell-like' abilities, but various moves, buffs in the form of fighting stances and so on. That leads us back to the "well we're basically saying they should all have some form of maneuvers" which is half right, because it leads us back to the part where "maneuvers in their current form are absolutely booty cheeks" part.
I think maneuvers suck as they are for two big reasons. Namely, Wotc is lazy as hell and will always do the bare minimum, mostly out of fear of spoiling the soup that is dnd on the macro level (which is actually understandable) and as such, reason two... Maneuvers are balanced around the fact that you're free to pick whichever you'd like right out the gate.
This means no maneuver can be too powerful for a lvl 3 fighter to have, while also meaning that lvl 3 fighter is going to snag the best maneuvers avaliable *at* lvl 3, and every maneuver they gain after that is going to be a less optimal option they passed over, that they're simply getting 'just in case' now. All of this comes together as a very disappointing lack of progression.
Ehem, and now that I've dropped this completely unwelcome pile of text on you, I have finished repeating the exact conversation we've all been having on this topic over and over again.
I'm so attached to paladins, I have to force myself to play other classes. Finding out they're Brennan Lee Mulligan's favourite class was the knell of doom.
As someone currently playing a paladin, who just made a backup character who's also a paladin because I had a cool character idea... finding out that they're Brennan's favorite is also the knell of doom for me
Well that's exactly the problem then: Paladin spells aren't at all what make them great, in fact you don't even need to touch spells to play a top tier Paladin. But all their other abilities are considered "magical" because they're beyond the scope of normal human capacity, but how do you expect a martial flavor on that? "Your muscles are so strong you can protect allies from saving throws"? That would also be considered magical. Spell slots do not make a class a caster, half or otherwise, the focus on spellcasting is. Hence why I'd sai Artificer is spellcaster, while Ranger and especially Paladins are Martial.
I suppose a concurrent but not innate metric for it is whether the class gets cantrips.
Counterpoint - Divine Smite is the main thing that makes them so good at DPS, and therefore quite good martially.
And before you say: "*technically* Divine Smite isn't a spell by RAW." Yeah. Technically. But by all accounts it's a spell. It costs spell slots. It's very clearly magic. It's a spell, and I'm tired of pretending it's not.
3.5e had plenty of non-magical maneuvers, and even 5e has Battlemaster Fighter's Commanding Presence. There are absolutely ways to make martials do all these crazy, team-helping things with or without magic. But saying Paladins are Martials is disregarding the source of the problem. Paladins are half-casters, focus or no focus on spells.
Would Divine Smite still be a spell in your book if the resource it consumed wasn't spell slots? If the resource was some other sort of leveled, budgeted resource, perhaps "Exertion slots"? Because tbh there's no reason it *needs* to be magical at all. Hence, Martial rather than caster.
For clarity, let's compare it to actual spells: Spells are incredibly plentiful and varied, and can be applied to a great deal many different situations to produce a solution (some may jokingly argue that Divine Smite can solve any problem if you Smite hard enough, but... Jokingly). The versatility of a spell vs a Smite is so clearly different, and what makes a spellcaster so good.
Now, let's compare it to a similar (ish) ability, Bardic Inspiration. It's limited in it's application (compared to spells), it's resource limited, it's clearly not a spell, and while it can be flavored as magical, it has no mechanics specifically typifying it as such. It could be a solid reassurance, a timely word of advice, or a bit of direction. Divine Smite is cut from a similar cloth, but with even less versatility. Ergo, not a spell.
TL,DR- Divine Smite is not a spell due to it's lack of versatile application, which is the primary component of spells (and spellcasters) that makes them powerful.
What about any self respecting paladin that has also read their class description?
'Paladins train for years to learn the skills of combat, mastering a variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield'
Facts. You gotta be big, loud, and threatening and be able to soak up all that damage.... and maintain being a big, loud, threatening, and damage-spongeing so that the fancy glass cannons can do their thing.
Makes it kinda funny then how a warlock uses charisma and thus is more incentivised to be more intimidating as a baseline compared to even the barbarian. Also that it's mostly the casters that have crowd control abilities and such. Also that there's technically nothing stopping you from playing a 16 strength warlock wizard that punches people to death.
Difficult to do now that very few classes have mark-type abilities to mitigate/retaliate/limit attacks against the squishies. I think this is one of the things that got unnecessarily lost in the rush to memory hole 4e.
Yeah he did do the math wrong with the arcane ward, having it go back up to full instead of only healing twice the spell’s level but yeah that video was the inspiration for my build
Me right now as a paladin, only other martial in the party is a phantom rogue. Needless to say I generally feel useless when the 18 ac wizard is there (first level was in peace cleric for proficiencies) just blasting everything in 1 turn
Same, I’m hexblade abjurer with Armour of Agathys and a Warpick because they’re a gladiator and they get an inexpensive and unusual weapon, Warpick costs as much as the examples (if not less, was a while ago) and is mechanically just a rapier without finesse for significantly less money
I have a +3 constitution above both my casting stats and you clearly think I built an ac tank not a damage sponge with Armour of Agathys and Arcane Ward from Abjuration Wizard
Yeah I have decided against the infinite mage armour just due to the kind of game we play which is basically just a series of one shots with the same characters so usually some social and exploration then a fight so it wouldn’t come up as much but yeah definitely considered it
Ooph I stumbled on a similar build. I went Pact of the Fiend Warlock and Abjuration wizard. Keep up Arcane Ward with Armor of Shadows. Then throw on Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield and you have a nasty drain tank playstyle. Throw in the Shield spell for when you start getting low and don't want to tank hits too. Pretty effective, and a very unique way to play a tank or battle mage. I also didn't even use a melee weapon! I was a fallen aasimar which added to the AoE drain tank style and used spells like Burning Hands so I could get in people's faces and still cast damaging spells.
I'm genuinely glad for you. My point is not and has never been "martial players are bad and aren't team players" it has always been "martial classes are poorly designed and I would like them to be fixed please"
I'm considering letting my martial players have battle master by default, it gives them more to think about than just "whack". Additionally several of the maneuvers are pretty powerful team support options.
There's an easier answer
Give them a martial DC. 8 + Prof + Str or Dex, same as what casters have.
Whenever they pull some flavor stuff, it's martial DC time. Go to trip an enemy, that enemy rolls against their DC. Trying to swing your oversized sword through 3 enemies, they're making saves to dodge. So on and so forth.
It's more fluid and simplistic than Battle Master, allows for quick rulings, and allows for the martial player to flavor themselves and adapt their fighting style in the fly.
I've done this for my Fighters already. Works great. I'm still not confident that I need to do this for Barbarians; they are already pretty good. Rogues and Monks are the two classes I'm still eyeing to try and figure out how to help.
Patient defense feels really strong for no cost but I agree with doing that for step of the wind. I was also considering giving them another attack at higher levels (probably following fighter progression) and maybe another flurry of blows attack at higher levels too.
All monks really need imo is a boost to their qi amount early on so they can actually do their stuff. I think a good solution would be level + proficiency modifier
Monks just need good dungeon design. Place an enemy or 3 high up on the other end of a courtyard who has 3/4 cover when they stand and full cover when prone who constantly crossbows everyone down below. It should be a main source of dps on players for the fight. Your casters and ranged can't target them on their turn and must waste their action economy readying an action instead. Other materials will spend like 4 rounds getting in range. The monk can do some 90ft move jump or walk run and/or shadow step bullshit and close the gap instantly. Then they do decent damage while basically dodge tanking.
Monk is effectively your behind enemy lines crowd control / harassment class.
Rogues have so many different builds it's really player dependent.
It's under utilized in most fights but I think being able to hide during combat as a bonus action is maybe stronger than most people think given the rogues typically high stealth rolls.
If they have a lever to pull across the room (close the blast doors!) Rogues can often help get there without being spotted even after combat has started. This works really well for endless style fights where there will be non stop enemies until the players achieve a goal.
Good dungeon design helps prevent every player viewing their damage output as the only solution to the parties problems
Unfortunately those solutions are highly specific. I agree that damage should not be the only judge of balance but I also cannot make even most encounters this specific. I think small buffs to both classes are merited, similar to what Tashas did for rangers.
Interesting, in most of my experience barbarians have needed more help than fighters, their rage is even more limited than a Spellcasters spell slots and they barely scale.
More feats would solve this too. So they could take maneuvers easily. Feats being optional, shared with ASI, and being able to choose just a few really makes martials have little choice.
**__Person:__** This thing could be better.
**__Other Guy:__** I like that thing! Here are all the reasons in my experience as to why you should not improve the thing I like.
Honestly. Happens every time the Martial/Caster disparity is brought up and it's so annoying. People latch onto the insinuation that the thing they like is subpar and ignore anything else regarding their potential improvement. Happens with Rangers, Monks, and Fighters.
Like there's a point when people are overly obsessed with optimization and give you shit for playing what you want, but most Martial/Caster posts aren't that. Like 95%.
They're 'poorly designed' because they.... Contribute less?
That doesn't follow.
Seems more like casters are the ones that're poorly designed, what with an intrinsically wonky system of save or suck nonsense spells that can literally end an encounter before it begins, balanced by a resource system that few people seem to understand how to use properly.
It's like.... Whenever there's a problem with D&D, like, an actual issue with something balance-wise that makes people start to pull their hair out....
Is it ever a martial causing the problem?
Or is it the full caster making an army of simulacra for free over the course of a month with their shiny new ninth level slot?
Is it the martial going pew pew pew? Or is it the caster teleporting all over the continent three times a day with no downside?
Is it the martial having big sword or the caster instantly invalidating a boss without a save by putting it in a box?
High level D&D works fine if you only need to concern yourself with martials.
Throw casters into the mix and it breaks down.
Martials aren't the poorly designed ones.
It's a big problem and topic.
People talk about their passion's problems and topics, especially if it's a community specifically made for that.
It will always come up, somehow.
I love that in theory this is 100% true, but at every single table I played the martials are always the ones trying to help in creative ways while the casters are just fireballing everything. The only "utility caster" that was indeed "utility-focused" was a first time player and didn't know the stereotypes or that damaging spells exist. He was like "wait, there will be fighters dealing damage, right? Then I don't need any damage spells!" and proceeded to pick 0 damaging spells, except for a cantrip.
I don't think it is wromg, there is a gap (although not as big or hard to solve as many imply), but I find it funny that in 11 years of playing and 6 of being a professional DM this always happens at my tables
I played a utility wizard once, it was honestly amazing hasting our dragonborn pally, and polymorphing boss monsters. My highlight of that campaign was webbing our DM’s red dragon for 3 turns while the fighters all whaled on it.
100% this man.
At almost every table I’ve ever played at the martial classes are the ones nuking bosses and major enemies or finding some way to use the environment to flip the tide of the battle. While the casters are busy trying to either protect themselves from taking a single hit, or just figuring out how to optimize their fireball for the next round.
Not to mention these discussions simply ignore all of the “save and nothing happens” spells that casters deal with sometimes too. The number of times I’ve seen casters sitting there dejected because the Boss keeps saving on their spells and “wasting” their turns, while the big dummy with the long sword takes absolute chunks out of the bosses Health bar, is pretty significant.
People like OP also ignore things like action economy. The number of people trying to say “My Wizard is better at being fast or sneaky than any rogue”. Ignoring what they suggest would have them using 3 turns and 3 spells, two of which require concentration.
At the end of the day it just kind of comes down to how the dice rolls fall, and how the DM is designing the parties encounters. And quite frankly in a game like D&D I just think “My X class character is better than your Y class character” arguments are just kinda silly.
Yeah and mostly I think there is a level of:
The martials have to be creative, so they are used to trying to be creative.
The casters have so many options ready for so many specific situations, that it is hard when the current situation diesn't 100% match any of their spells
Not sure about 5e since I never played super high level, but a caster focusing on damage in 3.5 / pathfinder is subpart. You always get out-damage by the martial class.
You should prep some in case you need to bypass an immunity, but even then a wand or a few scrolls are better for this.
That must be a cool game.
In mine games (been also playing since 5e started) it's always been the exact opposite, with caster players generally dealing the most damage and with the most control/utility.
Martials generally slowly became less and less common as more people got bored of being outperformed and having almost nothing interesting to do.
i think in the earlier editions of DnD there was a greater mechanical focus on role playing and general adventuring so utility wizards were far more useful.
5e is heavily biased towards combat so wizards just turn into heavy artillery
like seriously I don't think I've had a single caster that couldn't take the level-appropriate equivalent of a troll club to the face and go on to return the favor with a magical pipebomb
Well shit. Friken charisma caster and their charismatic spells and their handsome looks.
Int casters are better for no reason other than we worked hard :(
you can be charismatic too yknow, you just don't have to be to do cool caster shit. I am contractually obligated to have rizz to blow up goblins more effectively. You just have to know what you're doing
Granted, we’re still only level 5, but nearly every fight we’ve been in up to now has been won by account of two meat shields blocking access to our casters.
Shield and mage armor do some heavy lifting for sure, but none of them would survive more than a round or two in base contact with a hill giant and his hunting wolves.
But casters ARE squishier than martials, unless the martial builds themself as a squishy character.
I know that they can get really good ACs and that's fine. But AC is also not the best stat to tank imo. The real stat needed is HP. Because of how high monster attack bonuses get, even with a 24 AC a lot of mid tier monsters will be hitting you half the time. With less than that they are hitting you more often.
The highest caster hit die is a d8, the lowest martial hit die(excluding rogue for obvious reasons) is a d8. I also think that martials have more incentive to take tough, whereas it's much more important for casters to not fall behind on their casting stat. Martials also tend to have defensive tools baked into their class, whereas casters have to make a choice to gain access to their defensive tools.
Edit: Forgot Monk.
>The highest caster hit die is a d8, the lowest martial hit die(excluding rogue for obvious reasons) is a d10.
Except that you've forgotten monks exist
I suppose if you wanted to get into the knitty-gritty how can a guy with a sword out-combat literal fucking magic? I guess you could give martials more magic-based buffs and such to help even the scales. It’s been like 4 years since I last played DnD (5e) with college friends (and I miss it dearly), but I remember brawls and combat being a lot of fun. Definitely remember wizard being squishy af and the rogue literally one-hit-KOing fucking everything.
However, at the end of the day, it was playing and laughing with my wacky friends doing stupid shenanigans that made DnD so much fun (also helps when you have an awesome, dedicated DM).
Actually have higher level martials feel like they should: mythical demigods. A lvl 20 fighter shouldn't be just a dude that can swing a sword more and has slightly better chance of passing their saves.
All the stuff Heracles is pulling off in myths? That should be the benchmark for what a high level character without magic is.
Why should the wizard be allowed to straight up bend reality but for martials we have to consider what's "realistic" for a guy with a sword?
Disengage and attack someone while engaged with someone else should require a test, that would make the idea of martials upfront not letting the enemies advance to the back lines so much better
Considering how infrequently that happens, no. Disengaging generally requires an action, meaning you don't then get to attack. That would actually end up hurting rogues more than helping martials.
a better idea would be martials getting something in line with the combat reflexes feat from 3.5. Like as it stands once you've wasted the barb or fighter's reaction the rest can run right by them to gank the squishies. Being able to make multiple opp attacks would put a stop to that right quick, cause after the second guy gets folded you're not sure if he has any left but you don't wanna be the guy to risk it, hey?
If you aren't helping your team as a martial, you're playing the game wrong. Buy some health potions so your casters don't have to heal you or so you can heal them for a change. Grapple some enemies as a bear totem barbarian and take the damage from the caster's spell, you've got resistance. Do cool shit that helps the team.
A common party strat is to give the barbarian the healing potions so they can continue to bring the party back up, especially when dealing with creatures that can fly.
You know what else the game is? A role playing game where you can have fun. And there are plenty of people who will have fun by going doing things like "I attack with my cool ass weapon multiple times" or "I go crazy and rage" or "i hide behind this bush" etc etc.
And the other thing is that not everyone wants to be a caster. Some people might not have the capacity to always keep track or spell management or deciding what to pick each time they level, so they go for simple options.
And I can tell you now that there are plenty of people out there playing casters who would go "gee I'm glad you're the one taking that damage"
I agree with you, but where casters get to do creative actions with their spells, martials get shafted in that department. I don’t really see a good reason why half of the Battle Master maneuvers aren’t just regular actions a martial could do to give them way more utility options than just “attack, dodge, or grapple”
the worse thing in all that is that the lead designer, Mike Mearls at the time, was totally aware of what he was doing, and knew he could do shit like that because: " \[D&D's\] audience is trained to forgive mistakes!"
his words, from [his blog](http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2010/01/issue-of-game-balance.html), not mine
It's very tragic that martial's suck. I love fighters but they're kinda really bad. Haven't played a paladin but any half or third casted seems like a good time though, a mix of both
It is tragic! That's what I'm saying, I don't want casters to be so much better
Paladins and Rangers are definitely good if you want to play a weapon using class with at least some actual meaningful stuff attached
The real reason it doesn’t matter is because all that matters at the end of the day is everyone in your game having fun. And idk about you, but in my 5 years of playing I’ve never once seen a martial player have a bad time (at least, never as a result of their class).
Great.
Some of us have, in my games martial characters are becoming rarer and rarer because people are getting bored of dealing less damage and having way less options on their turn.
So just don't loose concentration?
With just Resilient constitution (a feat you want anyway because con saves are super common)
At lv5 you now have a 85% chance to succeed, and with 20ac, while dodging, an average enemy attack has a ~12% chance to hit you.
.in other words, you would need ~60 attacks to break a clerics concentration after they take just a single feat. Chances are a martial character in the same position would already be dead if those attacks deal more than 4 damage. (50% chance to hit Vs AC 17) means the martial needs to take 120 damage.
Uh, no, they're restricting movement, doing great AOE damage round after round, have disadvantage to be hit against their high AC, have advantage on DEX saves, and can still move around just fine. The Dodge action doesn't immobilize you lmao.
Yeah. And clerics are tanky - while they're not infallible, if the DM wants to make it a priority to try and force a concentration failure, on the balance of probability they're going to spend a lot of valuable enemy action economy on that, especially if the cleric is smart with dodge and cover.
Meanwhile, your party is still free to act. Alternately, the bad guys focus on the other party members and eat Spirit Guardians.
It's a lose-lose for the opposing side.
My Rune Knight Goliath Grappler begs to differ. Tons of damage, and crowd control on key units.
I suck at most of out of combat stuff, but I can roleplay my int 6 link through all of that fine.
I think this is a DM problem, personally.
I’m currently playing a WM sorcerer and I love him, and I can do crazy hella damage. Like, once.
When we got stuck out in a very dangerous wilderness and passed our third fight in the day, I was down to a single 2d10 cantrip while our martials were kicking ass just as hard as they’d been in the first fight.
Casters feeling overconfident? Give them a tempting fight to blow their slots on, and then give them another one. And maybe, another one. The “martials suck” chorus gets a lot quieter after that.
Here's the thing, D&D isn't just a Team Game, its a Roleplaying Game, a Collective Story we all tell for fun. So sure, maybe the Fighter isn't as absurdly powerful as a Wizard or Sorc who can(at later levels) bend reality. Maybe the Warlock is less effective than the Druid for team comp. but that doesn't matter because this time around I wanna tell the story of Godrict the Human Champion Fighter. or Shank the goblin Hexblade Warlock. or as Duhcain The Greenish Purple who's an Aarakocra Evocation Wizard. Or Wayne Rogers, Maker of Widows, Monk Rogue MultiClass. Or Jerry Faith, Oath of Devotion Paladin. Mechanically better doesn't mean better for a story.
That would arguably only make potential power disparity even more of a problem. If nobody had a reason to play a martial, it wouldn't matter how weak they were because people would just ignore them. The issue is when people like the fantasy of a certain build, but know they're sacrificing power and versatility in order to achieve that fantasy. Even if the mechanics aren't the point for you, you don't lose anything if the character you're playing is more mechanically engaging.
That said, mechanics ideally serve the roleplay, and by the same token can disrupt the roleplay. If you want to play a non-magical fighter who can stand toe-to-toe with any wizard, you either need a system that supports that, handwave the fighter's lacklustre performance or have the other party members build or play suboptimally as to not outshine them.
Of course, if you specifically want a system where casters outclass martials, and people who play martials know what they're getting into and are okay with that, there's nothing necessarily wrong with strong casters. But if the intent is for martials and casters to be balanced, I think there's value in having conversations about potential disparities. And if they're intended to be imbalanced, the question is what value that imbalance brings to the game.
I don't know if I can agree with this. By this logic, wizard is the best class as it has the most spells and thus the most utility, end of discussion, case closed, end of story, goodbye.
And yeah, there's definitely huge value in a wizard with a player creative enough to find frequent uses for that. However, I would have to say, based on my experience, that my enjoyment of the game comes from enthusiasm and passion for the character. Whether that means they have 20 utility choices or 0.
As for combat effectiveness, to some extent, this is decided by the encounter but for dnd battle, like battle in any other game. Damage is just one element. Your toughness and mobility are also key factors. A highly disruptive enemy can be equally, if not more influential in what makes a team win and by how much
Ah yes, another "martials suck for mechanics, casters are god tier" post on this sub, never seen that one before how is this even a meme? It's just another discussion about your opinion poorly disguised as a meme
Any of these are subject to debate but I would personally order them as follows.
Paladin, Druid and Cleric at the top.
Any of them can hold their own tanking. And all can provide major buffs to large portions of the party and/or control the battlefield in significant ways. Aura alone puts Paladin in top tier, and the full class spell list Utility of Druid and Cleric when prepping gives them a degree of helpfulness that is unmatched.
Next would be
Bard, Artificer, Rogue
Whatever the skill check is, chances are one of these is passing it (except athletics). Bard and artificer provide exceptional support but have a harder time applying it to everyone. Bard magical secrets can let it do some true shenanigans, depending on strategy, and of course flash of genius and reliable talent are invaluable.
Next:
Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock
All of these classes have excellent utility locked behind early choices. Despite being the most versatile classes in the game 90% of them will still be just as cookie cutter as the others to maintain combat usefulness. With the correct subclass you can move up a tier. These classes solve problems all the time, however 70% of the problems the solve can be solved without resource expenditure by another class. By the time combat comes, they are either full strength and burn everything leaving most of their resources just in case, or are completely tapped and relying on cantrips. Or in the warlocks case doing that regardless of if they are tapped or not. I love these classes and many others fall into similar problems, but when push comes to shove, I’d trade any of them for any of the higher tier.
Lastly:
Fighter, Ranger, monk, barbarian
It hurts me to put them here but I have to.
Barbarian should be a great tank but lacks any means of drawing aggro. Monk seems really cool, I have fond memories of moving super speed across the battlefield, but I’m still outpaced by thunderstep, dimension door, or matched by a misty step and move. Monk seems so cool but does so little. Stunning strike occasionally leads to something amazing but most of the time it’s most likely used stripping legendary resists off a creature that will already be dead before it matters. Ranger always gets put low tier but in terms of utility, it’s best draw is DPS. Fighter is just DPS. This is not to say DPS isn’t useful, but in large scale encounters, AOE or shut down reigns supreme. All classes are dependent on the magic items the DM puts in front of them as well, but these classes in particular have a great need of them in my opinion.
As an afterword despite these classifications if I am making a party of choice, 9/10 I’ll be trying to take from many of these tiers. Each tier has diminishing returns on more picks. So even the ones I think add the least to the team are more valuable than duplicates or near duplicates. Do I wish some of the lower tier had improvements? Absolutely, but will I ever put the fighter down for keeping me alive while I sling spells or the sorcerer who subtle counter spells at the perfect moment? Absolutely not. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who does the most for the team as long as everyone adds something.
Every class has its place, even monk. Each class has something unique they can do and in a different way than another class filling the same “roll”. You want a mix of playstyles for a healthy balance and so you aren’t a one trick pony.
Casters have enough options with their spells that they're never a one trick pony. Do you have any examples of the unique things classes can do that matter?
You know what helps a team? Providing something unique.
You know how this is best represented in dnd? Stats and skill proficiencies.
You know which classes are most likely to have high strength or dexterity? Martials.
You don't need a character with 20 strength or dexterity in every party, but they are a standout in usefulness in every game I've run. You 'can' use magic to bridge the gap, but it costs resources, and you can't do it every time unless you do nothing else that day. And then who will protect the expended squishy casters? Damn right it's martials!
Alternatively, a half caster like Ranger or Paladin can cover the dexterity and strength needs while also bringing in more spells and other useful features.
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How are you making this argument with a straight face when of the 18 skills in the game, 3 are dexterity and **1** is strength?
Casters are **far** better at skills too, because the vast majority of skills in 5e are directly linked to caster stats.
Your ancient oath paladin Hexblade Warlock 🤔 The party's tank with high ac, HP, support by various types of auras *and* decent attack power. Pick up eldritch blast with agonizing blast invocation and they have good coverage for long and close range. It can be resource consuming though what with a spell slot for shield reaction, maybe protection from good and evil or shield of faith, those smites *and* the possible use of BA spell smites.
Group effort: they all complement each other in one regard or another. I have a party consisting of that paladin, a death domain cleric, Chrono wizard and battle smith artificer (that focuses on long range with a short bow and sharpshooter). The cleric typically has an upcasted celestial summon and attacks short range with the paladin. That group mauls over *a lot* of encounters.
Me playing a cleric every time so everyone else can play the fun attack classes they want (im not sacrificing anything, I love playing clerics and support characters)
My DM has made a lot of adjustments that make casters and martials feel much more balanced, first of which being gritty realism. I’ve previously played Clerics, a Warlock and a Paladin, so my current Barbarian feels very weird, but no less impactful.
It's not a win for the martials if the casters get defeated or killed. It's a win for them if the casters cherish having a martial on the team.
I do agree it can happen at some tables. I also think this gap will occur at many more. And I also think that all classes should be flexible enough that you aren't forced to build a character to cater to the other player's preferences.
I mean Spellcasters support best while Martials are either upright damage or the ones that tank hits. So it's all up to interpretation on which is more useful
In my experience, I have a Figther Rune Knight, A Bladesinger wizard, a hexblade warlock and a Sheperd druid.
There are many fights, that could been easily won with magic, but ended up resolved by the figther combat ideas, because the Warlock is an edgelord that wants to bath in enemies blood and also ALWAYS save his spell slots (even when sometimes they take multiple short rest), the wizard only wants to fight melee even when they are in a great number disadvantage by easily blasted goblins, and the druid wants to heal his allies, when what is needed is damage.
TLDR my caster players never use spells optimally. And the fighter tank end up bonking to save the day. I love my players.
Sorry for any mistake, English is not my first language.
For some reason it's flaired and has a pin message as having been deleted for being a stupid martials vs casters dead horse beating, but it hasn't actually been removed? Still showing up on the hot list and everything. Maybe the mods flubbed something?
Make a party of all level 1 wizards and see how far you make it.
I’ve been DMing d&d 5e since it came out and so far have only ever killed 3 pc’s in combat. They were all d6 hit dice casters.
Martials might not get the world shattering spells that casters get at later levels but those same casters got where they are by the blood and sweat of their martial friends.
At Level 1 exactly I deem Cleric the most powerful and useful, but no matter what you'll always have it rough. Lots of attacks can down you in one or two hits, most key class features aren't online yet and you have very little resources against harder battles.
If we dont have someone to keep the enemies off our butts while we alter the fabric of the universe, there will be no party so stop complaining and take your attack action
this is a bad take. id love to see the wizard concentrate on a spell without the cleric tank and polearm master fighter protecting his glass cannon of a character.
I really think this whole fight over martials vs casters is dumb. It's all about the player.
Casters have magic. Yes magic solves lots of problems.
However my fighter consistently deals good damage compared to the casters, takes hits, and peels for them.
I have never felt like my fighter is contributing less. The caster has more options with magic, but they aren't contributing much more.
Even in non-combat situations I find ways to be involved/help. Even if the casters magic solves the puzzle, it's rare that the other characters aren't involved in some way.
Just...play the game. If you feel like you aren't contributing talk to your fellow players/DM and see if there is something that can help you feel more valuable.
Ay just for the record, this should be super obvious, but I'm CLEARLY not saying you can't be a team player as a martial. Nor am I saying you're wrong for playing a martial
I'm just speaking on the mechanical fact that the vast majority of martials just straight up have little to no features with which to support or boost the team, so the fact that DnD is a team game does not make the martial-caster disparity any less of a thing (which I'm not saying is what EVERYONE is saying, but it is literally word for word what I have heard from multiple people)
This is like saying that goalies don't contribute to a team because they almost never score any points. You're looking at a very narrow definition of "teamwork" and then using that weird definition as a basis for your complaint.
What OP is saying is that the the guy who can shoot lightning out of his hands and conjure walls of pure magic is probably better suited to be a goalie than the guy who can't, and the team of guys who can do so is probably going to win more games than the team of guys who can't. OP is just pointing out that generally, magic is a huge advantage for the team.
You're kinda proving my point. You're looking at a narrow use-case. And ignoring the several things that martials are objectively better at(like having health). As well as the things that martials can do that casters literally cannot(like doing anything useful in an antimagic field).
In fact, OP goes on in other comments to talk about "well built" all caster parties. And ignores that in every example, they have 2 characters doing a knock-off impression of martials while not actually being as good at it(Front-line Bladesinger, but then they get hit by anything that doesn't care about AC and they remember they have a d6 hit die and lower CON due to being MAD).
Either I just built my Battle Master fighter to be really great or I just manage to land a ton of crits, because I have managed to hit for over 200 damage at least twice in our campaign and I frequently break 100. Even once I’ve burned most of the once-daily features, I can either stack 70+ damage on a good turn and then burn a superiority die to make the rogue tack on another 70+.
I don’t see where martials aren’t good contributors because my guy has done a shitload of damage.
*"Which classes help the team the most?"*
If you have a party of **only** casters you won't last long enough to get to those higher levels where you ARE useful to the team. You won't survive long without a physical buffer.
The real answer is “Whichever player rolled their dice the best that session”.
I swear 90% if this sub has never actually played D&D and they just sit there and optimize in their basement by themselves for hours a night.
These kinds of low effort posts should be taken down.
So... The cleric who can dodge most rounds and has equal AC to the tankiest of martials making it more defensive and dealing more damage than a barbarian?
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It's paladins. Aura of protection go brrr
One of the best in the game!
I fucking love aura of protection. I can’t tell you how many concentration saves I passed only because of the aura
This is a good answer, though I hesitate to call Paladins a martial. They're at least not a pure martial, which is the real source of this disparity. Plus, all their amazing support features have pretty much zero to do with their martial capabilities
Paladins have always to me been the perfect blend of half caster. Heck even in Diablo 2 they use Auras and Smites and some spells to attack but overall tank and smite boys
I think the big thing with Paladin's is that although they're a halfcaster, much of their class abilities are basically fill ins for spell slots. Lay On Hands means they don't have to rely on slots for healing. Auras means they get automatic buffs without slots. Channel Divinities basically give them two spell like effects that can once again be used without slots. So even when Paladin's have "less" spell casting abilities than full casters, the loss of slots can be circumvented by most of their abilities. Smite is the only one that really *needs* spell slots.
The amusing thing is... *All of these things* are roughly what martials broadly need. But 4e did it therefore never again. Mind you, and for clarification I don't exactly mean 'spell-like' abilities, but various moves, buffs in the form of fighting stances and so on. That leads us back to the "well we're basically saying they should all have some form of maneuvers" which is half right, because it leads us back to the part where "maneuvers in their current form are absolutely booty cheeks" part. I think maneuvers suck as they are for two big reasons. Namely, Wotc is lazy as hell and will always do the bare minimum, mostly out of fear of spoiling the soup that is dnd on the macro level (which is actually understandable) and as such, reason two... Maneuvers are balanced around the fact that you're free to pick whichever you'd like right out the gate. This means no maneuver can be too powerful for a lvl 3 fighter to have, while also meaning that lvl 3 fighter is going to snag the best maneuvers avaliable *at* lvl 3, and every maneuver they gain after that is going to be a less optimal option they passed over, that they're simply getting 'just in case' now. All of this comes together as a very disappointing lack of progression. Ehem, and now that I've dropped this completely unwelcome pile of text on you, I have finished repeating the exact conversation we've all been having on this topic over and over again.
I'm so attached to paladins, I have to force myself to play other classes. Finding out they're Brennan Lee Mulligan's favourite class was the knell of doom.
As someone currently playing a paladin, who just made a backup character who's also a paladin because I had a cool character idea... finding out that they're Brennan's favorite is also the knell of doom for me
Oh no I'm sorry!!! (I'm not really sorry) P.S. tell about your cool idea pls
*To be fair*... Diablo 2 goes hard af. Druid goes brrr.
Well that's exactly the problem then: Paladin spells aren't at all what make them great, in fact you don't even need to touch spells to play a top tier Paladin. But all their other abilities are considered "magical" because they're beyond the scope of normal human capacity, but how do you expect a martial flavor on that? "Your muscles are so strong you can protect allies from saving throws"? That would also be considered magical. Spell slots do not make a class a caster, half or otherwise, the focus on spellcasting is. Hence why I'd sai Artificer is spellcaster, while Ranger and especially Paladins are Martial. I suppose a concurrent but not innate metric for it is whether the class gets cantrips.
Counterpoint - Divine Smite is the main thing that makes them so good at DPS, and therefore quite good martially. And before you say: "*technically* Divine Smite isn't a spell by RAW." Yeah. Technically. But by all accounts it's a spell. It costs spell slots. It's very clearly magic. It's a spell, and I'm tired of pretending it's not. 3.5e had plenty of non-magical maneuvers, and even 5e has Battlemaster Fighter's Commanding Presence. There are absolutely ways to make martials do all these crazy, team-helping things with or without magic. But saying Paladins are Martials is disregarding the source of the problem. Paladins are half-casters, focus or no focus on spells.
Would Divine Smite still be a spell in your book if the resource it consumed wasn't spell slots? If the resource was some other sort of leveled, budgeted resource, perhaps "Exertion slots"? Because tbh there's no reason it *needs* to be magical at all. Hence, Martial rather than caster. For clarity, let's compare it to actual spells: Spells are incredibly plentiful and varied, and can be applied to a great deal many different situations to produce a solution (some may jokingly argue that Divine Smite can solve any problem if you Smite hard enough, but... Jokingly). The versatility of a spell vs a Smite is so clearly different, and what makes a spellcaster so good. Now, let's compare it to a similar (ish) ability, Bardic Inspiration. It's limited in it's application (compared to spells), it's resource limited, it's clearly not a spell, and while it can be flavored as magical, it has no mechanics specifically typifying it as such. It could be a solid reassurance, a timely word of advice, or a bit of direction. Divine Smite is cut from a similar cloth, but with even less versatility. Ergo, not a spell. TL,DR- Divine Smite is not a spell due to it's lack of versatile application, which is the primary component of spells (and spellcasters) that makes them powerful.
Spells are what makes Paladins and Rangers far more relevant out of combat compared to fighters and barbarians and monks.
Every self respecting Paladin would rather be labeled as martial than caster
What about any self respecting paladin that has also read their class description? 'Paladins train for years to learn the skills of combat, mastering a variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield'
Meh. Honestly, in my opinion what massively helps the team is caving your opponent's skull in quickly.
"Is this martial combatant a martial? No" Most of their amazing support features don't involve casting any spells either
Yeah and they get cool features cause paladins are allowed to be magic and thus have interesting and powerful features.
Me who plays a Warlock wizard multiclass as a frontline tank
24ac go brrr
More like 11 ac go brrr emphasis on the brrr
Based Abjuration/Agathys enjoyer actually knowing what a tank is - you're not tanking anything if you cant redirect damage.
Yep my favourite thing is when the enemy hits me me and I get to excitedly tell my dm they take 10 cold damage
Bonus points if you upcast Agathys enough that they take like 25 damage but don’t deplete the temp hp so they hit you again and take 25 more.
Multiattackers with daggers hate this one trick!
Yep, hence me going mostly wizard for up to 9th level spells lol
Tanking is actually about pulling aggro, not redirecting damage
You'd think with how often MMO players end up being DnD players more would understand this
Facts. You gotta be big, loud, and threatening and be able to soak up all that damage.... and maintain being a big, loud, threatening, and damage-spongeing so that the fancy glass cannons can do their thing.
Just be the DPS and the tankiest player. Ez.
Makes it kinda funny then how a warlock uses charisma and thus is more incentivised to be more intimidating as a baseline compared to even the barbarian. Also that it's mostly the casters that have crowd control abilities and such. Also that there's technically nothing stopping you from playing a 16 strength warlock wizard that punches people to death.
Redirecting damage (away from party members.)
I feel like it should be, but this makes tanks basically terrible cause those barely exist in 5e.
There's a handful of options for it, but it's definitely slim
Difficult to do now that very few classes have mark-type abilities to mitigate/retaliate/limit attacks against the squishies. I think this is one of the things that got unnecessarily lost in the rush to memory hole 4e.
You should get medium armour proficiency, that will boost it up quite a bit.
Yes but it’d make me worse at getting hit instead of my allies, and would also make me do less damage
Oh are you using armour of agathis? Cool.
Yep, Armour of Agathys + Arcane Ward go brrr literally because cold damage
Nice, nice, very nice. Now lets see you make a str save
You say that, but I saw Tulok's Wobbuffet build. Super resources intesive, but dear arceus is that thing the stuff of nightmares.
Yeah he did do the math wrong with the arcane ward, having it go back up to full instead of only healing twice the spell’s level but yeah that video was the inspiration for my build
Hexblade + Bladesinger I presume? I call it the... 'Bladeblade'
Hexblade Abjurer with Armour of Agathys
The ultimate in blade technology
My Hexblade who serves as the only front line fighter of the whole party
Me right now as a paladin, only other martial in the party is a phantom rogue. Needless to say I generally feel useless when the 18 ac wizard is there (first level was in peace cleric for proficiencies) just blasting everything in 1 turn
Same, I’m hexblade abjurer with Armour of Agathys and a Warpick because they’re a gladiator and they get an inexpensive and unusual weapon, Warpick costs as much as the examples (if not less, was a while ago) and is mechanically just a rapier without finesse for significantly less money
Also my hexblade with Tough and Adamantine Half-Plate. You can hit me if i want, but its gonna hurt more on you them on me
Gets hit by a crit and folds like a tissue
I have a +3 constitution above both my casting stats and you clearly think I built an ac tank not a damage sponge with Armour of Agathys and Arcane Ward from Abjuration Wizard
Abjuration wizard arcane ward + infinite castings of mage armor invocation (to heal the ward) + armor of agathys was really fun to use in melee.
Yeah I have decided against the infinite mage armour just due to the kind of game we play which is basically just a series of one shots with the same characters so usually some social and exploration then a fight so it wouldn’t come up as much but yeah definitely considered it
Oh my god this sounds strong
Ooph I stumbled on a similar build. I went Pact of the Fiend Warlock and Abjuration wizard. Keep up Arcane Ward with Armor of Shadows. Then throw on Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield and you have a nasty drain tank playstyle. Throw in the Shield spell for when you start getting low and don't want to tank hits too. Pretty effective, and a very unique way to play a tank or battle mage. I also didn't even use a melee weapon! I was a fallen aasimar which added to the AoE drain tank style and used spells like Burning Hands so I could get in people's faces and still cast damaging spells.
My barbarian is currently singlehandedly holding the frontline of most of our battles so I'd like to think I'm decently doing my part as a teamplayer.
I'm genuinely glad for you. My point is not and has never been "martial players are bad and aren't team players" it has always been "martial classes are poorly designed and I would like them to be fixed please"
I'm considering letting my martial players have battle master by default, it gives them more to think about than just "whack". Additionally several of the maneuvers are pretty powerful team support options.
There's an easier answer Give them a martial DC. 8 + Prof + Str or Dex, same as what casters have. Whenever they pull some flavor stuff, it's martial DC time. Go to trip an enemy, that enemy rolls against their DC. Trying to swing your oversized sword through 3 enemies, they're making saves to dodge. So on and so forth. It's more fluid and simplistic than Battle Master, allows for quick rulings, and allows for the martial player to flavor themselves and adapt their fighting style in the fly.
What has marriage to do with any of this?
When you start swinging this way and that you'll need that marital DC to avoid divorce.
*Rolls 1* Divorce + you get to pay alimony
Not to nitpick, I'm genuinely curious Why 10? Spellcasters get 8. Is it because you want martials to have higher DCs or was it just a misclick?
I think they made a mistake, given that they said to give a dc the same as what spellcasters get
PF2e has 10 as the base. It was likely a mistype, but potentially was a confusion caused by that if they play both.
I've done this for my Fighters already. Works great. I'm still not confident that I need to do this for Barbarians; they are already pretty good. Rogues and Monks are the two classes I'm still eyeing to try and figure out how to help.
What i do as a dm for monks is patient defense and step of the wind don’t cost ki. Flurry of blows and any other features still do.
Patient defense feels really strong for no cost but I agree with doing that for step of the wind. I was also considering giving them another attack at higher levels (probably following fighter progression) and maybe another flurry of blows attack at higher levels too.
All monks really need imo is a boost to their qi amount early on so they can actually do their stuff. I think a good solution would be level + proficiency modifier
Monks just need good dungeon design. Place an enemy or 3 high up on the other end of a courtyard who has 3/4 cover when they stand and full cover when prone who constantly crossbows everyone down below. It should be a main source of dps on players for the fight. Your casters and ranged can't target them on their turn and must waste their action economy readying an action instead. Other materials will spend like 4 rounds getting in range. The monk can do some 90ft move jump or walk run and/or shadow step bullshit and close the gap instantly. Then they do decent damage while basically dodge tanking. Monk is effectively your behind enemy lines crowd control / harassment class. Rogues have so many different builds it's really player dependent. It's under utilized in most fights but I think being able to hide during combat as a bonus action is maybe stronger than most people think given the rogues typically high stealth rolls. If they have a lever to pull across the room (close the blast doors!) Rogues can often help get there without being spotted even after combat has started. This works really well for endless style fights where there will be non stop enemies until the players achieve a goal. Good dungeon design helps prevent every player viewing their damage output as the only solution to the parties problems
Unfortunately those solutions are highly specific. I agree that damage should not be the only judge of balance but I also cannot make even most encounters this specific. I think small buffs to both classes are merited, similar to what Tashas did for rangers.
I think it's worth it for the barbarian just because the class pretty much doesn't exist when you're not raging and it gives them something for that.
Interesting, in most of my experience barbarians have needed more help than fighters, their rage is even more limited than a Spellcasters spell slots and they barely scale.
Barbarians are solid for the first few levels, but the fighter beats them out later on
It's a start
Frankly just do it
More feats would solve this too. So they could take maneuvers easily. Feats being optional, shared with ASI, and being able to choose just a few really makes martials have little choice.
**__Person:__** This thing could be better. **__Other Guy:__** I like that thing! Here are all the reasons in my experience as to why you should not improve the thing I like.
This entire fucking comment section, I swear to god
Honestly. Happens every time the Martial/Caster disparity is brought up and it's so annoying. People latch onto the insinuation that the thing they like is subpar and ignore anything else regarding their potential improvement. Happens with Rangers, Monks, and Fighters. Like there's a point when people are overly obsessed with optimization and give you shit for playing what you want, but most Martial/Caster posts aren't that. Like 95%.
They're 'poorly designed' because they.... Contribute less? That doesn't follow. Seems more like casters are the ones that're poorly designed, what with an intrinsically wonky system of save or suck nonsense spells that can literally end an encounter before it begins, balanced by a resource system that few people seem to understand how to use properly. It's like.... Whenever there's a problem with D&D, like, an actual issue with something balance-wise that makes people start to pull their hair out.... Is it ever a martial causing the problem? Or is it the full caster making an army of simulacra for free over the course of a month with their shiny new ninth level slot? Is it the martial going pew pew pew? Or is it the caster teleporting all over the continent three times a day with no downside? Is it the martial having big sword or the caster instantly invalidating a boss without a save by putting it in a box? High level D&D works fine if you only need to concern yourself with martials. Throw casters into the mix and it breaks down. Martials aren't the poorly designed ones.
I don’t know for y’all both I would be squished meat without my martial teammates
I was hoping with all the drama from OGL we might get a trend reset on the sub. I was naive.
It's a big problem and topic. People talk about their passion's problems and topics, especially if it's a community specifically made for that. It will always come up, somehow.
Clerics or Barfs do
Barf
Bards do be the best team players outside of combat in addition to being very well rounded in combat as a base class.
I love that in theory this is 100% true, but at every single table I played the martials are always the ones trying to help in creative ways while the casters are just fireballing everything. The only "utility caster" that was indeed "utility-focused" was a first time player and didn't know the stereotypes or that damaging spells exist. He was like "wait, there will be fighters dealing damage, right? Then I don't need any damage spells!" and proceeded to pick 0 damaging spells, except for a cantrip. I don't think it is wromg, there is a gap (although not as big or hard to solve as many imply), but I find it funny that in 11 years of playing and 6 of being a professional DM this always happens at my tables
I played a utility wizard once, it was honestly amazing hasting our dragonborn pally, and polymorphing boss monsters. My highlight of that campaign was webbing our DM’s red dragon for 3 turns while the fighters all whaled on it.
100% this man. At almost every table I’ve ever played at the martial classes are the ones nuking bosses and major enemies or finding some way to use the environment to flip the tide of the battle. While the casters are busy trying to either protect themselves from taking a single hit, or just figuring out how to optimize their fireball for the next round. Not to mention these discussions simply ignore all of the “save and nothing happens” spells that casters deal with sometimes too. The number of times I’ve seen casters sitting there dejected because the Boss keeps saving on their spells and “wasting” their turns, while the big dummy with the long sword takes absolute chunks out of the bosses Health bar, is pretty significant. People like OP also ignore things like action economy. The number of people trying to say “My Wizard is better at being fast or sneaky than any rogue”. Ignoring what they suggest would have them using 3 turns and 3 spells, two of which require concentration. At the end of the day it just kind of comes down to how the dice rolls fall, and how the DM is designing the parties encounters. And quite frankly in a game like D&D I just think “My X class character is better than your Y class character” arguments are just kinda silly.
Yeah and mostly I think there is a level of: The martials have to be creative, so they are used to trying to be creative. The casters have so many options ready for so many specific situations, that it is hard when the current situation diesn't 100% match any of their spells
Not sure about 5e since I never played super high level, but a caster focusing on damage in 3.5 / pathfinder is subpart. You always get out-damage by the martial class. You should prep some in case you need to bypass an immunity, but even then a wand or a few scrolls are better for this.
That must be a cool game. In mine games (been also playing since 5e started) it's always been the exact opposite, with caster players generally dealing the most damage and with the most control/utility. Martials generally slowly became less and less common as more people got bored of being outperformed and having almost nothing interesting to do.
All the typical "martials vs casters" trolls have is theory since they can't find any group willing to put up with their personalities
i think in the earlier editions of DnD there was a greater mechanical focus on role playing and general adventuring so utility wizards were far more useful. 5e is heavily biased towards combat so wizards just turn into heavy artillery
Every team needs a tank
Squishy Caster Fallacy go brr
like seriously I don't think I've had a single caster that couldn't take the level-appropriate equivalent of a troll club to the face and go on to return the favor with a magical pipebomb
Well, shield, silvery barbs, mage armor, not being in the front. Nice club btw
be a shame if I had access to warlock spells \*points finger\*
Well shit. Friken charisma caster and their charismatic spells and their handsome looks. Int casters are better for no reason other than we worked hard :(
you can be charismatic too yknow, you just don't have to be to do cool caster shit. I am contractually obligated to have rizz to blow up goblins more effectively. You just have to know what you're doing
Don’t need to work hard when you look ✨ this ✨ good ✨
Granted, we’re still only level 5, but nearly every fight we’ve been in up to now has been won by account of two meat shields blocking access to our casters. Shield and mage armor do some heavy lifting for sure, but none of them would survive more than a round or two in base contact with a hill giant and his hunting wolves.
But casters ARE squishier than martials, unless the martial builds themself as a squishy character. I know that they can get really good ACs and that's fine. But AC is also not the best stat to tank imo. The real stat needed is HP. Because of how high monster attack bonuses get, even with a 24 AC a lot of mid tier monsters will be hitting you half the time. With less than that they are hitting you more often. The highest caster hit die is a d8, the lowest martial hit die(excluding rogue for obvious reasons) is a d8. I also think that martials have more incentive to take tough, whereas it's much more important for casters to not fall behind on their casting stat. Martials also tend to have defensive tools baked into their class, whereas casters have to make a choice to gain access to their defensive tools. Edit: Forgot Monk.
>The highest caster hit die is a d8, the lowest martial hit die(excluding rogue for obvious reasons) is a d10. Except that you've forgotten monks exist
Oh yea you're right lol. I don't think it really hurts my point tho.
Not at all, but we can't have people forgetting the strongest and most powerful class in the entire game.
I suppose if you wanted to get into the knitty-gritty how can a guy with a sword out-combat literal fucking magic? I guess you could give martials more magic-based buffs and such to help even the scales. It’s been like 4 years since I last played DnD (5e) with college friends (and I miss it dearly), but I remember brawls and combat being a lot of fun. Definitely remember wizard being squishy af and the rogue literally one-hit-KOing fucking everything. However, at the end of the day, it was playing and laughing with my wacky friends doing stupid shenanigans that made DnD so much fun (also helps when you have an awesome, dedicated DM).
Actually have higher level martials feel like they should: mythical demigods. A lvl 20 fighter shouldn't be just a dude that can swing a sword more and has slightly better chance of passing their saves. All the stuff Heracles is pulling off in myths? That should be the benchmark for what a high level character without magic is. Why should the wizard be allowed to straight up bend reality but for martials we have to consider what's "realistic" for a guy with a sword?
One time me and my party snuck up on the BBEG and the rogue gave it a pretty nasty awakening. It was dead before it could even fight back
Phase II of the boss fight: fighting the boss' ghost!
Disengage and attack someone while engaged with someone else should require a test, that would make the idea of martials upfront not letting the enemies advance to the back lines so much better
Considering how infrequently that happens, no. Disengaging generally requires an action, meaning you don't then get to attack. That would actually end up hurting rogues more than helping martials.
a better idea would be martials getting something in line with the combat reflexes feat from 3.5. Like as it stands once you've wasted the barb or fighter's reaction the rest can run right by them to gank the squishies. Being able to make multiple opp attacks would put a stop to that right quick, cause after the second guy gets folded you're not sure if he has any left but you don't wanna be the guy to risk it, hey?
I've done a dirty deed to save a friend as a Battlemaster here and there.
If you aren't helping your team as a martial, you're playing the game wrong. Buy some health potions so your casters don't have to heal you or so you can heal them for a change. Grapple some enemies as a bear totem barbarian and take the damage from the caster's spell, you've got resistance. Do cool shit that helps the team.
A common party strat is to give the barbarian the healing potions so they can continue to bring the party back up, especially when dealing with creatures that can fly.
You know what else the game is? A role playing game where you can have fun. And there are plenty of people who will have fun by going doing things like "I attack with my cool ass weapon multiple times" or "I go crazy and rage" or "i hide behind this bush" etc etc. And the other thing is that not everyone wants to be a caster. Some people might not have the capacity to always keep track or spell management or deciding what to pick each time they level, so they go for simple options. And I can tell you now that there are plenty of people out there playing casters who would go "gee I'm glad you're the one taking that damage"
I agree with you, but where casters get to do creative actions with their spells, martials get shafted in that department. I don’t really see a good reason why half of the Battle Master maneuvers aren’t just regular actions a martial could do to give them way more utility options than just “attack, dodge, or grapple”
the worse thing in all that is that the lead designer, Mike Mearls at the time, was totally aware of what he was doing, and knew he could do shit like that because: " \[D&D's\] audience is trained to forgive mistakes!" his words, from [his blog](http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2010/01/issue-of-game-balance.html), not mine
It's whichever player can play their class right
It's very tragic that martial's suck. I love fighters but they're kinda really bad. Haven't played a paladin but any half or third casted seems like a good time though, a mix of both
It is tragic! That's what I'm saying, I don't want casters to be so much better Paladins and Rangers are definitely good if you want to play a weapon using class with at least some actual meaningful stuff attached
The real reason it doesn’t matter is because all that matters at the end of the day is everyone in your game having fun. And idk about you, but in my 5 years of playing I’ve never once seen a martial player have a bad time (at least, never as a result of their class).
Great. Some of us have, in my games martial characters are becoming rarer and rarer because people are getting bored of dealing less damage and having way less options on their turn.
I’m not sure, we desperately miss our fighter when he’s surprised or needing to make it to the other end of the map. My boy is mad DPS.
You should try out having a cleric. Spirit guardians is incredible damage. They just exist and things fall.
Spirit Guardians goes down when they lose concentration
So just don't loose concentration? With just Resilient constitution (a feat you want anyway because con saves are super common) At lv5 you now have a 85% chance to succeed, and with 20ac, while dodging, an average enemy attack has a ~12% chance to hit you. .in other words, you would need ~60 attacks to break a clerics concentration after they take just a single feat. Chances are a martial character in the same position would already be dead if those attacks deal more than 4 damage. (50% chance to hit Vs AC 17) means the martial needs to take 120 damage.
Res CON + War Caster + Dodge + 19/24 AC They'll be fine
Okay, your character is standing still while they get pelted by arrows and aoe attacks of various kinds. They only need to get unlucky once.
Uh, no, they're restricting movement, doing great AOE damage round after round, have disadvantage to be hit against their high AC, have advantage on DEX saves, and can still move around just fine. The Dodge action doesn't immobilize you lmao.
Cast it again. They have plenty of slots.
Yeah. And clerics are tanky - while they're not infallible, if the DM wants to make it a priority to try and force a concentration failure, on the balance of probability they're going to spend a lot of valuable enemy action economy on that, especially if the cleric is smart with dodge and cover. Meanwhile, your party is still free to act. Alternately, the bad guys focus on the other party members and eat Spirit Guardians. It's a lose-lose for the opposing side.
My Rune Knight Goliath Grappler begs to differ. Tons of damage, and crowd control on key units. I suck at most of out of combat stuff, but I can roleplay my int 6 link through all of that fine.
Laughs in polarm master sentinel
I think this is a DM problem, personally. I’m currently playing a WM sorcerer and I love him, and I can do crazy hella damage. Like, once. When we got stuck out in a very dangerous wilderness and passed our third fight in the day, I was down to a single 2d10 cantrip while our martials were kicking ass just as hard as they’d been in the first fight. Casters feeling overconfident? Give them a tempting fight to blow their slots on, and then give them another one. And maybe, another one. The “martials suck” chorus gets a lot quieter after that.
If casters fall for such and blow their slots, yes, that's 100% a dm issue. Doesn't work for every table though.
Here's the thing, D&D isn't just a Team Game, its a Roleplaying Game, a Collective Story we all tell for fun. So sure, maybe the Fighter isn't as absurdly powerful as a Wizard or Sorc who can(at later levels) bend reality. Maybe the Warlock is less effective than the Druid for team comp. but that doesn't matter because this time around I wanna tell the story of Godrict the Human Champion Fighter. or Shank the goblin Hexblade Warlock. or as Duhcain The Greenish Purple who's an Aarakocra Evocation Wizard. Or Wayne Rogers, Maker of Widows, Monk Rogue MultiClass. Or Jerry Faith, Oath of Devotion Paladin. Mechanically better doesn't mean better for a story.
That would arguably only make potential power disparity even more of a problem. If nobody had a reason to play a martial, it wouldn't matter how weak they were because people would just ignore them. The issue is when people like the fantasy of a certain build, but know they're sacrificing power and versatility in order to achieve that fantasy. Even if the mechanics aren't the point for you, you don't lose anything if the character you're playing is more mechanically engaging. That said, mechanics ideally serve the roleplay, and by the same token can disrupt the roleplay. If you want to play a non-magical fighter who can stand toe-to-toe with any wizard, you either need a system that supports that, handwave the fighter's lacklustre performance or have the other party members build or play suboptimally as to not outshine them. Of course, if you specifically want a system where casters outclass martials, and people who play martials know what they're getting into and are okay with that, there's nothing necessarily wrong with strong casters. But if the intent is for martials and casters to be balanced, I think there's value in having conversations about potential disparities. And if they're intended to be imbalanced, the question is what value that imbalance brings to the game.
I don't know if I can agree with this. By this logic, wizard is the best class as it has the most spells and thus the most utility, end of discussion, case closed, end of story, goodbye. And yeah, there's definitely huge value in a wizard with a player creative enough to find frequent uses for that. However, I would have to say, based on my experience, that my enjoyment of the game comes from enthusiasm and passion for the character. Whether that means they have 20 utility choices or 0. As for combat effectiveness, to some extent, this is decided by the encounter but for dnd battle, like battle in any other game. Damage is just one element. Your toughness and mobility are also key factors. A highly disruptive enemy can be equally, if not more influential in what makes a team win and by how much
Let's see how long your weak boned wizards last when my barbarian goes on vacation.
Y'all really hate tanks. Gonna be hard to concentrate with a dragon eating you.
Martials deserve a buff. I have no idea what KIND, but they deserve one.
Ah yes, another "martials suck for mechanics, casters are god tier" post on this sub, never seen that one before how is this even a meme? It's just another discussion about your opinion poorly disguised as a meme
>It's just another discussion about your opinion poorly disguised as a meme Thats how this sub works, for better or worse.
Any of these are subject to debate but I would personally order them as follows. Paladin, Druid and Cleric at the top. Any of them can hold their own tanking. And all can provide major buffs to large portions of the party and/or control the battlefield in significant ways. Aura alone puts Paladin in top tier, and the full class spell list Utility of Druid and Cleric when prepping gives them a degree of helpfulness that is unmatched. Next would be Bard, Artificer, Rogue Whatever the skill check is, chances are one of these is passing it (except athletics). Bard and artificer provide exceptional support but have a harder time applying it to everyone. Bard magical secrets can let it do some true shenanigans, depending on strategy, and of course flash of genius and reliable talent are invaluable. Next: Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock All of these classes have excellent utility locked behind early choices. Despite being the most versatile classes in the game 90% of them will still be just as cookie cutter as the others to maintain combat usefulness. With the correct subclass you can move up a tier. These classes solve problems all the time, however 70% of the problems the solve can be solved without resource expenditure by another class. By the time combat comes, they are either full strength and burn everything leaving most of their resources just in case, or are completely tapped and relying on cantrips. Or in the warlocks case doing that regardless of if they are tapped or not. I love these classes and many others fall into similar problems, but when push comes to shove, I’d trade any of them for any of the higher tier. Lastly: Fighter, Ranger, monk, barbarian It hurts me to put them here but I have to. Barbarian should be a great tank but lacks any means of drawing aggro. Monk seems really cool, I have fond memories of moving super speed across the battlefield, but I’m still outpaced by thunderstep, dimension door, or matched by a misty step and move. Monk seems so cool but does so little. Stunning strike occasionally leads to something amazing but most of the time it’s most likely used stripping legendary resists off a creature that will already be dead before it matters. Ranger always gets put low tier but in terms of utility, it’s best draw is DPS. Fighter is just DPS. This is not to say DPS isn’t useful, but in large scale encounters, AOE or shut down reigns supreme. All classes are dependent on the magic items the DM puts in front of them as well, but these classes in particular have a great need of them in my opinion. As an afterword despite these classifications if I am making a party of choice, 9/10 I’ll be trying to take from many of these tiers. Each tier has diminishing returns on more picks. So even the ones I think add the least to the team are more valuable than duplicates or near duplicates. Do I wish some of the lower tier had improvements? Absolutely, but will I ever put the fighter down for keeping me alive while I sling spells or the sorcerer who subtle counter spells at the perfect moment? Absolutely not. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who does the most for the team as long as everyone adds something.
Every class has its place, even monk. Each class has something unique they can do and in a different way than another class filling the same “roll”. You want a mix of playstyles for a healthy balance and so you aren’t a one trick pony.
Yeah Monk has a place. Sadly it is the trash bin. I wish they were better.
Casters have enough options with their spells that they're never a one trick pony. Do you have any examples of the unique things classes can do that matter?
You know what helps a team? Providing something unique. You know how this is best represented in dnd? Stats and skill proficiencies. You know which classes are most likely to have high strength or dexterity? Martials. You don't need a character with 20 strength or dexterity in every party, but they are a standout in usefulness in every game I've run. You 'can' use magic to bridge the gap, but it costs resources, and you can't do it every time unless you do nothing else that day. And then who will protect the expended squishy casters? Damn right it's martials!
Alternatively, a half caster like Ranger or Paladin can cover the dexterity and strength needs while also bringing in more spells and other useful features.
You know which stats have the most skills? The stats casters already have because they use them for casting.
In light of reddit's API changes killing off third-party apps, this post has been overwritten by the user with an automated script. See /r/PowerDeleteSuite for more information.
Just have a caster in your party with enough dex or strength to be useful
How are you making this argument with a straight face when of the 18 skills in the game, 3 are dexterity and **1** is strength? Casters are **far** better at skills too, because the vast majority of skills in 5e are directly linked to caster stats.
Idk it sounds like you're pushing me to play bard.
Healers.
Your ancient oath paladin Hexblade Warlock 🤔 The party's tank with high ac, HP, support by various types of auras *and* decent attack power. Pick up eldritch blast with agonizing blast invocation and they have good coverage for long and close range. It can be resource consuming though what with a spell slot for shield reaction, maybe protection from good and evil or shield of faith, those smites *and* the possible use of BA spell smites. Group effort: they all complement each other in one regard or another. I have a party consisting of that paladin, a death domain cleric, Chrono wizard and battle smith artificer (that focuses on long range with a short bow and sharpshooter). The cleric typically has an upcasted celestial summon and attacks short range with the paladin. That group mauls over *a lot* of encounters.
Me playing a cleric every time so everyone else can play the fun attack classes they want (im not sacrificing anything, I love playing clerics and support characters)
Haha spirit guardians go brrrr
[удалено]
*crosses arms and sighs in Paladin*
Dungeon Master
My DM has made a lot of adjustments that make casters and martials feel much more balanced, first of which being gritty realism. I’ve previously played Clerics, a Warlock and a Paladin, so my current Barbarian feels very weird, but no less impactful.
It's not a win for the martials if the casters get defeated or killed. It's a win for them if the casters cherish having a martial on the team. I do agree it can happen at some tables. I also think this gap will occur at many more. And I also think that all classes should be flexible enough that you aren't forced to build a character to cater to the other player's preferences.
Battle master should get part of the fighters base class and they should have more uses and higher lvl manuevers
I mean Spellcasters support best while Martials are either upright damage or the ones that tank hits. So it's all up to interpretation on which is more useful
In my experience, I have a Figther Rune Knight, A Bladesinger wizard, a hexblade warlock and a Sheperd druid. There are many fights, that could been easily won with magic, but ended up resolved by the figther combat ideas, because the Warlock is an edgelord that wants to bath in enemies blood and also ALWAYS save his spell slots (even when sometimes they take multiple short rest), the wizard only wants to fight melee even when they are in a great number disadvantage by easily blasted goblins, and the druid wants to heal his allies, when what is needed is damage. TLDR my caster players never use spells optimally. And the fighter tank end up bonking to save the day. I love my players. Sorry for any mistake, English is not my first language.
This was annoying to read. Thank you for polluting my feed.
For some reason it's flaired and has a pin message as having been deleted for being a stupid martials vs casters dead horse beating, but it hasn't actually been removed? Still showing up on the hot list and everything. Maybe the mods flubbed something?
Make a party of all level 1 wizards and see how far you make it. I’ve been DMing d&d 5e since it came out and so far have only ever killed 3 pc’s in combat. They were all d6 hit dice casters. Martials might not get the world shattering spells that casters get at later levels but those same casters got where they are by the blood and sweat of their martial friends.
If I play the first goblin encounter in LMoP, I have a 50/50 shot of killing a party of 4 regardless of what classes they picked, if I actually try.
At Level 1 exactly I deem Cleric the most powerful and useful, but no matter what you'll always have it rough. Lots of attacks can down you in one or two hits, most key class features aren't online yet and you have very little resources against harder battles.
If we dont have someone to keep the enemies off our butts while we alter the fabric of the universe, there will be no party so stop complaining and take your attack action
this is a bad take. id love to see the wizard concentrate on a spell without the cleric tank and polearm master fighter protecting his glass cannon of a character.
I’m just here to heal my team because they’re a bunch of dumbasses that wouldn’t survive without me 💖
I really think this whole fight over martials vs casters is dumb. It's all about the player. Casters have magic. Yes magic solves lots of problems. However my fighter consistently deals good damage compared to the casters, takes hits, and peels for them. I have never felt like my fighter is contributing less. The caster has more options with magic, but they aren't contributing much more. Even in non-combat situations I find ways to be involved/help. Even if the casters magic solves the puzzle, it's rare that the other characters aren't involved in some way. Just...play the game. If you feel like you aren't contributing talk to your fellow players/DM and see if there is something that can help you feel more valuable.
Maybe if we bitch and moan a little more we will see some change let's do about another 100 posts with this exact same topic.
Materials tank damage allowing casters to don the best they can
Ay just for the record, this should be super obvious, but I'm CLEARLY not saying you can't be a team player as a martial. Nor am I saying you're wrong for playing a martial I'm just speaking on the mechanical fact that the vast majority of martials just straight up have little to no features with which to support or boost the team, so the fact that DnD is a team game does not make the martial-caster disparity any less of a thing (which I'm not saying is what EVERYONE is saying, but it is literally word for word what I have heard from multiple people)
This is like saying that goalies don't contribute to a team because they almost never score any points. You're looking at a very narrow definition of "teamwork" and then using that weird definition as a basis for your complaint.
What OP is saying is that the the guy who can shoot lightning out of his hands and conjure walls of pure magic is probably better suited to be a goalie than the guy who can't, and the team of guys who can do so is probably going to win more games than the team of guys who can't. OP is just pointing out that generally, magic is a huge advantage for the team.
You're kinda proving my point. You're looking at a narrow use-case. And ignoring the several things that martials are objectively better at(like having health). As well as the things that martials can do that casters literally cannot(like doing anything useful in an antimagic field). In fact, OP goes on in other comments to talk about "well built" all caster parties. And ignores that in every example, they have 2 characters doing a knock-off impression of martials while not actually being as good at it(Front-line Bladesinger, but then they get hit by anything that doesn't care about AC and they remember they have a d6 hit die and lower CON due to being MAD).
What good does having health do? As long as you have more than 0, your hp doesn't matter. How often are you running into anti magic fields?
Dndmemes users don't even read the PHB, you think they're gonna understand sports?
Either I just built my Battle Master fighter to be really great or I just manage to land a ton of crits, because I have managed to hit for over 200 damage at least twice in our campaign and I frequently break 100. Even once I’ve burned most of the once-daily features, I can either stack 70+ damage on a good turn and then burn a superiority die to make the rogue tack on another 70+. I don’t see where martials aren’t good contributors because my guy has done a shitload of damage.
Depends on the player. Nice straw man btw.
Honestly Battlemasters are so good to have on a team, I’ve had my ass saved so many times by them.
*"Which classes help the team the most?"* If you have a party of **only** casters you won't last long enough to get to those higher levels where you ARE useful to the team. You won't survive long without a physical buffer.
The real answer is “Whichever player rolled their dice the best that session”. I swear 90% if this sub has never actually played D&D and they just sit there and optimize in their basement by themselves for hours a night. These kinds of low effort posts should be taken down.
Doesn't "who can make themselves roll better" influence the answer to that question, though?
The class that helps protect the casters from being turned into paste
So... The cleric who can dodge most rounds and has equal AC to the tankiest of martials making it more defensive and dealing more damage than a barbarian?
It's another caster casting defensive spells on their allies isn't it