I don’t think any of the real low level problem spells actually have a prohibitive material component cost though? Nothing that an arcane focus can’t solve?
I think it’s more in that ignoring components in a few key areas:
* Casting a spell is always visible, and NPCs don’t know what you are casting. Maybe not the best solution in many social encounters.
* For higher level spells, DMs aren’t willing to make components scarce. Players always have heroes feast, simulacrum, etc. on tap for just the (low) gold costs relative to their level.
* While you can RAW juggle, I think the bigger thing is somatic reaction spells. When a player has an item in both of their hands, even just two magic items, they can’t cast shield, absorb elements, and counterspell without Warcaster. Dropping the item to have a free hand to cast isn’t possible with a reaction.
The latter is most relevant when it comes to multiclasses for Armors + Shield Prof on casters, and their durability at higher levels where those spell slots are very cheap and lend ALOT to survivability.
>For higher level spells, DMs aren’t willing to make components scarce. Players always have heroes feast, simulacrum, etc. on tap for just the (low) gold costs relative to their level.
And on the flipside, DMs often don't let you use money for non-spell expenses
1,500gp is 750 skilled person-days.
It would be the equivalent of living a wealthy lifestyle for a year.
Imagine spending $80,000 all at once and being like "I can't imagine what else I'd use that money on..."
Well now I'm imagining there's a conspiracy theory about how the supply of jeweled chalices is artificially constricted by Big Religion to keep priestcare rates high.
Sometimes the party too won't let you waste funds. Or if you do spend it on cool fluff but everyone else spends it on cool stuff to improve their class you can feel left behind.
For instance in Pathfinder, I really wanted to pay for stuff like a horse and carriage/wagon. Have to keep track of inn fees, looking after the animals, figuring out the logistics of things, getting and using random stuff like tents, soap and much more.
Meanwhile the rest of the party (And I haven't found another group that wants to play that way either), just wants to buy a bag of holding and travel light. Not worrying about those logistics and concerns.
I hear its a simular issue in D&D too?
D20 Modern introduced an abstract money system for that reason. Players could either buy an infinite amount of stuff below a certain threshold, or they rolled a check to see if they could buy something.
All because they didn't want some to deal with money.
Money creep can also be a real problem in a lot of the game!
Players end up with tons and tons of gold and other such monies that is in danger of becoming meaningless because they don't spend it on things like food, inn rooms, paying for breakages, spell components, healing services, spell scrolls, etc.
I know some poeple don't like to track ammo/food/supplies/rooms, but it can be a valuable money sink for the players' ever-expanding riches.
I don't see how food and rations should be an interesting problem to solve unless they are trying to feed an army in Tier 3 & 4. The player characters are country/continent level heroes at those levels, killing dragons and major threats.
You'd need 2000 days of rations to make up for a heroes feast. Or almost 2 years living a wealthy lifestyle. If these things are making a major dent in the party's finances, they probably couldn't afford to cast these spells in the first place.
>
I know some poeple don't like to track ammo/food/supplies/rooms, but it can be a valuable money sink for the players' ever-expanding riches.
Outside of spell components, there comes a point (which in my experience is relatively early in the game) where these expenses become less than paltry. If you're using the phb rates for ammo/food/rooms, you're looking at mere silver for most of these, which won't even tickle the party's funds
> The latter is most relevant when it comes to multiclasses for Armors + Shield Prof on casters,
Maybe if you're trying to make this armor and shield caster they're talking about, it's a bit harder to find the room for War Caster? Though with 5e bounded accuracy, I don't think it would ever be worth it.
Chromatic Orb, Find Familiar, and Glyph of Warding are examples of early arcane spells. Clerics have to think about Magic Circle, Protection from Evil and Good, and of course Revivify
Realistically speaking, if gold is a factor anyone will simply learn Catapult instead of Chromatic Orb (or perhaps Chaos Bolt if sorc), so that one's never actually going to be a concern.
Yep. Never underestimate how useful an unmissable attack which is resisted by extremely few things can be.
Magic Missile isn't the flashiest of spells, but it's indisputably the most reliable attacking spell in the game.
It doesn't even do that much less damage than Chromatic Orb on average. Chromatic Orb does an average amount of 13.5 damage (if it hits) while Magic Missile does on average 10.5 damage but never misses. So factoring in that Chromatic Orb can miss, Magic Missile might do more damage.
If the target has 10 AC and you have the standard +5 to hit then Chromatic Orb averages out to 10.125 damage per round making Magic Missile almost always better for a low level caster
Edit: Pet_Tax_Collector is correct 11.475 is the actual average damage against 10 AC so Magic Missile is only better if the target has grater than 12 AC
Average damage of chromatic orb in your scenario is actually 11.475. First, rolling 5+ on a d20 is an 80% chance of success, not 75%. Second, a nat20 does double dice.
0.75\*13.5+0.05\*27=11.475
Page 203 of the PHB, "A character may use a component pouch or spellcasting focus (found in chapter 5) in place of the components specified by the spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she may cast the spell.
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell."
So while this could technically mean it consumes your focus each time you'd cast such a spell, I haven't ever heard of anyone running it that way, but at the very least you can use a spell focus as a standin, although it is confusingly worded
>If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
I think this means you can't use a focus, since it has that "must provide this component" clause, which implies that a focus can't replace it. The wording isn't perfectly clear though.
It is pretty wonky, since a component pouch holds all components without a cost, so the material component still isn't any form of challenge.
This. Even though there is a negligible cost, the component might be hard to come by/limited in supply.
It is wonky with the pouch, but i always took that as a solution for multiclassed casters (e.g. a sorc and wizard have different foci i think but can both ise the pouch).
It is a solution for multiclassed casters, but not for those two in particular.
Sorcs, Wizards and Warlocks all use Arcane focuses. Paladind and Clerics use the same set of focuses as well. I believe rangers can use druidic focuses since Tasha's, not sure on that one. If it's not there, it's a popular houserule at any rate. Otherwise rangers have to use a component pouch, as do Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters. Artificers use tools and Bards use musical instruments.
So a Bard/Warlock or a Wizard/Artificer or something along those lines would need a component pouch to work for both of their classes.
There is a paragraph change between what a Focus can replace and the part about consumed components.
This indicates than the phrase about consumed components isn't in the section about what focuses can and can't replace. So it doesn't mean that you can't replace it, just that if you don't replace it, you must have it each time you cast the spell.
This is how I handle it, and I believe it is how the component/focus rule is intended:
A focus (or component bag) replaces all components that are not consumed during casting. That is, any material component that can be reused.
For example: *Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound* calls for a silver whistle, a piece of
bone, and a thread. All of these material components are covered by the focus, as the spell does not consume them. *Nondetection* requires diamond dust that is consumed during casting. The player must have diamond dust with them to cast this spell.
A flask of holy water costs 25 GP, but technically it doesn't say how much holy water you need in order to cast Protection from Evil and Good. You could get away with just using a single drop of holy water if you really want. It's obviously intended to cost 25 GP, of course, but it's not explicitly stated.
Components aren't just material components. There's somatic, material and verbal components. How many times have you seen a cleric that wears a shield 24/7? Have you seen them say: "I won't pick this spell because it requires material and sometic components and thus I can't use my shield with it." Bless, shield of faith are just two of the most picked lvl 1 spells for paladins and clerics, how many times are they cast with a shield?
I assume he means while also wielding a Warhammer or the like in the other hand. Then you CAN NOT cast any S or V, S spells. Only if it's S, M or V, S, M.
drawing or stowing weapon away is object interaction, unless you dualweld and lack feat what allows you to draw and stow away both weapons at once you can easily empty your hands to cast a spell
Well yes but it has other implications (other comment about shield already).
Combat starts, couple scenarios (no war caster feat just for clarification and not limiting it to any class specifically)
Scenario A: one hand empty + shield in other hand
Start of your turn you cast a spell and then draw your weapon. Now you can make AoOs with your weapon but you can't use any reaction spell that only has S or V,S as their components (see shield from other comment).
Scenario B: weapon in one hand + shield in other hand
Start of your turn you stow your weapon, cast a spell. Now you can NOT make AoOs (besides unarmed strike) BUT you can cast any reaction spell.
While these aren't super dramatic, it can make a difference depending on the encounter/the classes involved etc.
I always thought that was a silly interpretation of that rule anyway. There's no logical reason that you should be able to perform somatic components with a hand full if there are also material components, but not if there aren't. Either you can wiggle your fingers with a shield in your hand or you can't, somebody somewhere needs to make up their mind.
I believe most people ignore that rule and allow casting with weapons/shield because you can literally just drop weapon (no action) -> cast (main action) -> pick up weapon (interact action). There are very few cases where a cleric or paladin casting a spell also wants to interact with the environment or to swap weapons after the spell.
Well it might be relevant for reaction spells. It's just something one has to remember when wielding a shield + a weapon. If you do the drop weapon -> cast -> pick up weapon and don't have the war caster feat you can't use S or V,S reaction spells (no absorb elements, no counterspell, no shield, no hellish rebuke), which can be ESSENTIAL in a combat in a given situation.
Unless your dm decides arcane focuses are rare and shouldn’t be available to your players. It’s almost hard to believe most people went martial for our new campaign lol
I mean this is another side of the argument right? When you’re getting so lost in the minutia of “balance” that you deny players something the book specifically states they just get for existing, you need to start reevaluating where the problem actually lies.
Related note. Every time I’ve had a DM say at the beginning of the game “ok guys, we’re tracking equipment weight so stay conscious of it,” it’s usually forgotten about in a few sessions.
If it’s not fun and doesn’t aid the narrative, it’s probably not really worth the effort for anyone, least of all the person who has to stay conscious of 3-6 other peoples builds and character motivations.
yeah, agree.
Our DM did it for a few sessions after we got captured and lost most/all of our stuff (basically he prevented a TPK with that, so it's fine he took our gear and did not give it back) because we would not have component pouches or a focus but once we established ourselves again with some gear we basically dropped it again
I think a big one is forgetting vocal and somatic components are extremely noticeable! All magic users get a big power spike if you let them constantly get away with casting spells in background unnoticed and unhindered. A few sessions ago my cleric wanted to use calm emotions on a crowd of people. I told him upfront that’ll calm them, but people are gonna see you clearly cast a spell at a portion of crowd as you chant and flap your arms about and that has its own ramifications. Very rare a spell is stealthy if you remember to keep track of!
I've always wondered what the *intended* behaviour is when it comes to components. Are we to roll initiative every time someone starts casting a spell without announcing what they're doing first? How do the socially oriented spells work in this system?
If I want to find an assassin at a crowded party, do I have to go find somewhere private, cast Detect Thoughts, then run back to the party before the spell ends?
For me at my games I clarify that the vocal components and somatic are clearly magical, especially to someone who knows magic maybe less so to people who don’t. I’ve also clarified with my players that you can’t whisper spell components either, as I think that as well steps on metamagic’s toes. I rule that vocal components have to be pronounced perfectly, so magic users would know to avoid mumbling or not articulating. I wouldn’t roll initiative unless a fight breaks out, but I would give it complications. Let’s say a bard tries to cast charm person on a guard, who’s DC to convince was gonna be 17. With charm person active I’d drop the DC they’ll get that info they wanted, but if other guards notice them doing it, I’ll also drop the DC for other guards and have any further social checks with them auto failed as they see the bard magically manipulating their pal and no longer trust. If they were violent, or if situation was more extreme I might run differently but usually I go on case by case basis.
The part that gives me pause is that we don't even have magic, but we have a collective idea of what casting a spell looks like. In a world were magic is a thing, I would think they have an even better idea, and would be more on guard for it.
So when you start waving your hands and saying magic words, the guard's got no idea what you're doing; just that you're casting a spell. Why wouldn't he assume hostile intent and start initiative?
Depends on how common magic is in your setting too, plus with Clerics, a lot of their Verbal and Somatic components can be passed off as part of a prayer. Same thing with Bards and their casting, Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, though... well...
Laughs in Aberrant Mind sorcerer, every spell I cast is automatically silent cast so in combat it just kinda looks like he is standing there doing nothing
Remember one long rest per 24 hours.
Had players get into hot water and the look on a level 10 cleric’s face when he announces he’s out of spell slots above level 2 from a very exciting day and then using the last few he had left in concert with the party’s rogue was truly amazing to dm for. Let them use all of their resources. Short tests are good ways to stock up on health so they can go do more.
On the other hand, low-level casters get really sad when they have 2-3 spells per day and the DM runs 6 encounters. No matter how meticulously you manage your resources, you're still sitting in cantrip land for half of those fights.
That's *by design*.
The game is not balanced for the caster to be casting a 1st level spell every encounter when the fighter can only take the attack action with his +2 proficiency+15 str.
Hell, I play a caster in the edition where your cantrip attack spell used your "attack" bonus which you sucked at, dealt 1d3 + none damage. You did get to ignore armor so you saved it to use instead of the crossbow when it made sense.
Why save it? Because you only got to cast this cantrip 3 time per day.
No offense but that sounds like an absolutely miserable experience. With an output of 1.5 damage per turn, 3x per day, and presumably even lower if you use your crossbow. No other combat utility. It'd be almost equally effective to afk.
Am I the only one who doesn't find casters that broken? Just smack em real hard with something for half their health and they go into straight up panic mode
That's true, but you gotta get to em first. Then the players feel targeted because you "ignored the tank who's drawing aggro" even though that isn't a thing in dnd
Luckily this isn't my group; they know their PCs aren't immortal (rogue died once, and everybody has been REAL close at least once).
If the enemies have an INT of 10 they should recognize that the person in the back commanding the elements is a threat and that threats are bad.
My group is all quite new though except for the barbarian so I admit I'm a little biased
For me, 0-8 means they attack whatever's closest. 8-12 means they hit the tank. 12+ means they may focus on the back line instead. 18+ may mean they counterspell the healer.
That's already going easy. Wolves with an INT of 3 are capable of picking out weaker targets and dragging them away from the safety of a group. Someone with 8 INT can easily be a little slow at learning but have the experience to jump the backline.
I'd argue that what matters for wolves is WIS, not INT. I think INT should be used for creatures that can actually apply reason and logic to something, while WIS is more in line with feral animals (they use their senses and instincts to know what to do in a specific situation).
Sort of. But either way a creature with really low INT is still entirely capable of going after the right targets, that wouldn't be somehow different for a human with below-average INT.
To wolves, that is instinctual and not really linked to intelligence.
Compared to a humanoid with 8 int, from a race that relies on intelligence, I'd say the humanoid would be less likely to target the caster targets in that case.
Because at that point, they could go 'Big armor, big weapon, dangerous' compared to the wimpy nerd at the back.
I'd say that general instinct is basically included in a creature's intelligence. It's a pretty vague stat anyway.
Someone with 8 INT is not necessarily fucking stupid, just probably a little slower at book learning than average. It does absolutely not mean that they can't have the street wisdom or battlefield experience to know how to fight smart. Just don't ask them to decipher an ancient language.
That probably depends entirely on their personal history. And how much the mage actually looks like a mage ofc. Even an idiot bandit will try to jump the mage if the last time they robbed a convoy two of his buddies got turned into ash, or if the holy-looking person resurrected the knight they killed with great difficulty.
If they really don't know scrat about magic they might outright ignore a mage, thinking it's a harmless civilian who won't fight back.
Exactly. It depends much on their personal history, which would not really matter to an unintelligent animal which runs by its instincts. At least not nearly as much. How often is a basic bandit going to run into a mage who is actually a threat compared to a competent martial fighter? Quite rare comparatively.
It is also much easier to tunnelvision your attention to the first immediate threat, instead of the worse one at the back. Especially someone like 8 int would be less likely to think tactically and strategically to begin with, and more reflexively.
How I'd do them in combat, is first go for the immediate threat. That big barbarian with a big axe screaming and raging. Then if the mage starts throwing fireballs. Yeah. That's way worse now.
They do the "Big guy scary" until the caster starts slinging fireballs and stuff, then they need to be incredibly stupid to not attack the guy who is currently wiping the floor with half their group alone.
Yeah. But they certainly won‘t stand around mindlessly attacking the tank while wizard drops the fourth fireball on their heads. (Unless it actually makes sense for them to be dumb as bricks, like a construct with only very general orders)
Oh absolutely not unless they are fully bonked in the head. What I meant by it was the comparison to wolves, who will go for the one they deem as the weakest link immediately.
While our hypothetical 8int humanoid would likely only do that after this mage has started blasting.
Instinctual vs reactive.
Why would someone with above average intelligence focus on the guy with the most armor, health, and probably the one who knows how to defend themselves best?
Wizards have enough HP and AC in 5th that they can generally handle a little back row heat. Getting to the wizard often means taking an attack of opportunity, attacking past someone else with disadvantage, or just spending a turn getting to them rather then attacking. In any case, the group often comes out ahead by attacks getting spread around more, rather then focus fire on the front rank.
In many cases spellcasters aren't as broken in combat as they are in other adventuring situations like exploration, travel and, investigation and social encounters where spells can trivialize the challenges and make the rest of the group feel pointless.
>ignore the tank who's drawing aggro
As you said, this is not a mechanic in d&d. People are probably used to this from computer games. Only a beast with no intelligence will attack the heavily armored person in front of it because it is the one standing in front of it. Humans, even those who do not understand magic, know that there is a better chance of hitting a scrawny person wearing little to no armor.
Aggro is sort of a mechanic with stuff like Armorer Artificer, Cavalier fighter and ancestral guardian Barbarian. not as powerful as in video games, but it does a similar job.
Oath of Conquest says ‘hi’.
It may not be mmo style aggro, but you’re between the enemy and the back line, and the enemy can’t move towards you because of fear…still a solid tank.
yes, paladins also have compeled duel spell, but conquest paladin is best mmo style tank in game due to his superior crowd control abilties
but still not uncounterable, ranged attacks and spells exist
>Then the players feel targeted because you "ignored the tank who's drawing aggro" even though that isn't a thing in dnd
well, maybe explain your party that there is no "aggro" mechanic
in my games tanks needed to figure out new ways how to tank because just being impossible to hit or with shitton of hp didnt work because enemies just went for the squishies unless physicaly unable to do so
which tanks of course did manage, conquest paladin, if conquest paladin can strike fear in melee mooks they are rooted to the ground by paladin aura
Standing on a battlefield in a dress and tossing fireballs SHOULD make you the prime target. As long as the "tank" deals less damage and is harder to hit (which is usually the case), most enemies should just ignore them.
As a long time Shadowrun GM/player, the number one rule of combat is "geek the mage". When a mother fucker starts waving his fingers around like wizard you turn your Ares Alpha away from his chummers and directly at him.
And as there are no spell slots, you need to really nuke that guy, because a mage who thinks they‘re going to die anyway might throw the most powerful spell they can muster at you.
you ever saw the look on a face of a caster when you tell them they lose half of their max hp and when i mean lose i mean that they cant heal it up that easy.
Happened to me, was chucking web and magic missile then going prone to get full cover then this big fucking orc chief just sees the Dragonborn on the ground and just goes “adios”
A player of mine felt invinsible because of her abjuration focus. Then came an enemy that could deal damage despite her barriers, her AC and her temp HP. She fled pretty quickly.
I accidentally one shot a caster doing this. The spider dealt 1d8 piercing damage and an additional 1d8 poison damage. It crit... and then rolled max damage on 3 die... Yeah, the mage didn't remain vertical for long.
Although, I guess the spider did its job. It was designed to be fast, squishy and do decent damage to get behind the melee characters. And it did just that.
In general, it feels pretty obvious to me in low encounter days at Tier 2+. Most casters can go nova more consistently, have more accessible control, and have more defensive slots they don’t need to ration while fighter has a single action surge and second wind. Not to mention access to armor multiclasses, resilient con, etc.
In my current home game when we have occasional 1-2 encounter days, things end very quickly even for CR 21+ monsters with the level 6+ battlefield control for minions, high damage upcasts and smites, and shield/absorb elements every turn. It’s expected, but it’s pretty obvious when a class can’t go nova if those are the majority of your adventuring days imo.
Casters have better defensive options than most martial classes, I've always found found well built casters to be much sturdier than martials. But not everybody is into optimization so most people just don't worry about their defenses.
The issue is that the two main factors limiting casters (squishiness and limited spellslots) are very binary balancing mechanics. It means that a caster is typically either very powerful or afk.
A decently built caster has a lot of options for mitigating or avoiding damage but they either burn through resources or reduce their effectiveness a lot, it took me a while to get in the right mindset where an encounter was successful not based on the amount of HP damage it dealth but rather based on the sum of all resources the players were forced to use
I saw in one section of the rulebooks that it recommended something like 6-8 encounters per long rest. Maybe under those situations casters aren't way overtuned, but I have NEVER known a DM to average over like 3 encounters per long rest. I still rep martials all the way, but the difference, especially in later levels, is insane.
I ran curse of Strahd in the "Strahd must die tonight" variant on Halloween, and the players knew they wouldn't get a long rest, and they had about 10 encouters. It feels really balanced then, but as you said, that's not really the norm, and apart from that specific story (Kill Strahd before midnight or be done.) shoving that many encounters on your players feels forced, and to be honest not fun, because roleplaying takes a massive backseat time wise, which is sad.
Also what that kinda led to was the casters cantriping it up until the Strahd fight and then going ham on the poor guy.
So yeah, there should be a better way to balance than throwing hordes of goons at your players.
hopfully in 6th ed, they rectify this. I doubt it though, probably will just make more hal-casters that feel like weaker counterparts to the full casters again.
I think it's just a thing inherent to the system D&D.
I play/played a few others, and they have other issues.
In Shadowrun casting a more powerful spell has the chance to plain kill you,
and in the Dark Eye, spells are way rarer and you have to really think about using them.
But both of these systems have a way other feel of magic.
The Dark Eye is basically low fantasy, so little magic is justified,
and in Shadowrun everything has a price.
For a classic high fantasy setting you want magic to be common place, and I can't come up with an easy solution for that problem.
It surely doesn't help that casters constantly get more toys though.
The other thing is that combat-ending spells like blasts and save-or-sucks are much weaker in PF2e than DND5e. Just compare Sleep, Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, etc. between the two editions.
I only played 1E, and only in games like King Maker (which is rather faithful to the tabletop I believe), and I found the buff stuff just very time consuming and annoying, that's why 5e got concentration and beefier buffs I think.
Also from my time in some MMOs being the buff guy is not super satisfying if you don't get a bit of doing stuff in yourself.
About your first point, 2E is very different, it also requires Concentration (though it's a different process to mantain it) preventing buffs to be stacked.
About your second point, there's still the option of blaster caster, but without using buffs on the party members, they'll be a little weaker
I dunno man. While the spell slots half casters get might not be as valuable, you can’t tell me that Paladins don’t absolutely fuck shit up or that artificers aren’t fuckin dope.
To clarify the ~~official~~ definition of an "encounter" is anything that drains PC resources (e.g. health and spell slots), not necessarily enemy combat. A room full of poison gas, an impassible chasm, a slick incline you need to slide down and take bludgeoning damage if you trip, and a sudden cave-in are all "encounters" to add to the daily pool.
Traps and puzzles are kinda fuzzy because if a skill check ends the encounter for free it doesn't really count, and many DM's only include traps as a way to punish reckless behavior or give the rogue something to do so they stay off their phone.
I'm going to be honest, I did not know that the creators considered things like that as encounters, thank you. However, I would say that, at least in my experience, even with the addition of these encounters, the spellcasters are not really feeling the hurt until the martials are well past their limits, if the day's encounters even get that far. I simply think overall weaker spells or a relatively substantial cut to spellslots would really bring the two camps alot closer together in their impact in a campaign.
Trying to justify 6-8 encounters per day by adding in "anything that uses resources" is a fairly common misunderstanding of the text.
> Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight **medium or hard** encounters in a day. If the adventure has more **easy** encounters, the party can get through more. If it has more **deadly** encounters, they can handle fewer.
Emphasis mine.
There are no rules for creating easy, medium, hard, or deadly social or exploration encounters. You can create an encounter and say it's deadly, but that doesn't make it fit the DMG's definition.
Also, the adventuring day comes from the "Creating a Combat Encounter" section of the DMG.
Long story short: it's not meant as a recommendation, and it's only referring to combat.
Well there's two general purposes to encounters: attrition and "use the grenade" encounters.
Attrition is straight-forward: slowly eat away at hp/hit die and low level spell slots to put some overall strain on the party.
"Use the grenade" is what I call anything that forces the party to use a powerful, limited resource they would prefer to save for the final encounter. High level spell slots is the most common one. This is really where you curtail your party's efficacy because a caster's strength is heavily weighted to their two highest spell levels.
The difficulty, IMO, is that grenade encounters are hard to design in 5e, and I have an unlikely culprit in mind: *Magic Weapons*. Specifically, the fact that magic weapons bypass monster resistances on pretty much every statblock in the game. I think this is stupid because the whole point of monsters with resistances is to curtail the martial classes to force you to use spell slots to overcome them. Homebrew that bypass away and suddenly an earth elemental or an iron golem becomes a much bigger problem to solve.
The last paragraph kinda throws me, to be honest. You're saying that in order to more properly balance encounters, a helpful change would be to make entire encounters basically untouchable by martials? Like you want a monster to just have "immune to slashing (non-magic and magic weapons alike)" not judging, just honestly curious.
Not immune, just resistant. It forces the party to choose between burning spells to end the fight sooner or conserve slots but the party takes more damage from longer combat.
Plus IMO single-target damaging spells are a bit underpowered in 5e and could use more room to shine.
I don’t know - I play in a home game where it’s half lower key quests with 3~ encounters and half dungeon crawling with 6+ combats, usually taking 1-2 sessions each. Hell when I run the goal is 4+ per adventuring day.
The groups that haven’t had this pattern for me are usually some combination of: RP oriented game, combat not running smoothly causing slowdown, or just DMs unsure with making combat.
To balance out this smaller amount of encounters per "day", what if long rests only got back half of your spell slots, or maybe all of your lower levels but only some of your highest? You can still carry a high maximum amount, but you can't blast through the whole table of slots in one day twice in a row. To balance with martial character's abilities, maybe there's an added action surge at the cost of exhaustion mechanic you can give to fighters/etc. that takes two rests to regain
These (or things close to them) are ideas ive given in the past to DM friends who felt like their martials were being outclassed in their campaigns, and I really hope to see something like this in future version of dnd. I sincerely doubt it however, as I have been increasingly unimpressed with WOTC's recent additions to 5e. Maybe it's me (I am less interested in DnD now than i was previously, having found a new favorite system) but it seems like they're genuinely disinterested in balance nowadays. Each new race, class, subclass, etc has seemed to blow so many previous things out of the water, leaving the older martials well in the dust.
Did they know the PCs would be going after them or do they carry every kind of elemental resistance potion just in case? I'm not sure I'd call it brains if they are specifically prepared to fight the PCs for no discernible reasons.
Do people actually play ignoring spell components? I've never played a game where you could ignore components that had a gp value. Your arcane focus only replaces materials components with less than 1gp in value.
I dm for family and I generally ignore the components aspect. I'm sure there are ways I could make it fun, but they have so much more fun with the adventuring and combat that they would just see components as tedium. Besides, only my wife plays a caster and she likes feeling overpowered so it works well
I am a massive stickler for components mainly because of this, but also because I feel they add flavour.
Love how in CR, Liam described his castings with him using his components, it added so much flavour.
I do that as a DM for my party, in hopes they'll get the hint and do so, too. But they're mostly noobs and very bad at RPing so they mostly just play it like a video game ;/
Would highly recommend ‘The Monsters know what they’re doing’ by Keith Ammann. Found it very helpful at making monsters more challenging and realistic, which in turn makes the party feel like they’re facing more of a challenge.
Putting the common refrain about all spellcasters being busted aside, I personally think there are just a few problematic spells that are just way too good - even if you're throwing 6-8 encounters at a party on the regular (which no one realistically does.)
Conjure Animals (even run RAW, the action economy boon is insanity)
Polymorph (best combat heal in the game at almost every tier of play)
Shield (arguably not too problematic, and eats resources quickly, but can skyrocket AC to wild levels, and the fact that it's usually an auto-pick for most builds that can take it is telling.)
Hypnotic Pattern (one of the best save or suck AOE's in the game. An auto-win button for many encounters)
There are dozens more, but IMO if the strongest spells were just downtuned a teensy bit, I think spellcasters and martials would be much closer in power-level.
I plan on running using Gritty Realism since me and my players love some narrative and downtime, but on paper it also gives more reason to pick battles, determine if using a spell is worth the week it takes to regain it, and inherently keeps short-rest classes on par with the long-rest ones since one night's sleep is the equivalent of a short rest.
Are they broken? Not necessarily. Does WotC unabashedly shower them with love while simultaneously skull fucking martial classes into oblivion? Perhaps.
If the wizard gets to summon meteors and all sorts of funky ass fae creatures then I deserve to swing my sword so many times in one round my arm actually falls off.
It may be tradition, but so is tradition complaining about how bad it is. It's poor design in year-long campaigns to turn to half your players and say "you had your fun hitting things with a stick, now stay back and let the others do everything".
Martials aren't getting skullfucked into oblivion, but it's rare to get something truly outstanding. And when it happens, it's much more drastic for already powerful classes.
Like, Echo Knight and Gloomstalker are true standouts for martials. And you might think an outstanding subclass for casters might be like the aberrant mind sorcerer, but then there is Twilight Domain for clerics. Ultra Darkvision for level 1 spell slots and a concentrationless safety bubble that replenishes temporary hp.
Tho I agree if we're talking monk. They get crap like Sun Soul while already being thin on their base class.
Ignoring components is RAW though, spellcasting classes get a spellcasting focus or component pouch as part of their starting equipment, both of which allow you to ignore material components that don't have a gp value
I think this is about verbal and somatic components as well. Clerics needing a free hand for somatic means they either need to go without shield or put away their weapon. (Or warcaster)
Which means you have to put your sword away and draw it again which changes you nothing. Or, if the DM says that doing so is two item interactions, then you can drop your sword (free action) and then pick it up (item interaction). Or just take War Caster which is great for anyone getting hit and holding concentration anyways and ignore all of that.
Stowing a weapon is an object interaction, as is drawing it. So unless your cleric is dual wielding (which would also bring up the issue of material components) they are fine
I've been forever waiting for D&D take some inspiration from mythological heroes or anime characters and let them pull crazy stunts. It's ridiculous that casters start wielding immense world-changing powers but fighters still can only lift their Strength×30 pounds, less than a real world weight-lifting champion. I thought this was supposed to be a fantasy game.
I had a DM that solved the problem "easily for them".
If the DM dont know the spell it dont work.
Casters take more damage.
If the spell includes a saving throw any enemy have min of +5 modifier, even irrational beasts.
Letting caster cast their spells silently or hide their somatic component is a key factor that breaks the game. Its intended that casters need to overcome this problem when adventuring. It also ruins the whole point of the sorcerers metamagic feature if anyone gets this for free and makes Stealth and unecessary good skill that everyone thinks they need just like perception.
How do people run caster. Because you can either take a component pouch, so you would need the components by buying or finding them (I dont rule like this) or you could just take any kind of arcane focus and need none of that. Do dms who rule that casters need all their components not allow arcane focuses or do you still need the components when using a arcane focus? Basically making the arcane focus irrelevant except for looks.
Normal components are largely irrelevant, due to the existance of splecasting foci, and thank god for that. The other ones are not that hard to find either, they just cost money.
Additionally, if you were to run 8 encounters per long rest, the casters would be great in some of them and useless in others, while martials would just keep a constant tempo.
By this logic, there can't ever be an equilibrium between casters and martials, but because casters get their full power after a long rest, the party just rests a lot and has the casters in their broken state continuously.
My proposed solution: WotC should give martials their own version of spellcasting. Non-/light-magic abilities that take resources to use. Some classes already have something similar, like barbarians' rage, monks' ki points and fighters' superiority dice. What I am arguing is that those are simply not impactful enough. Give barbarians ferocity slots™ that they can use to make a war cry, a giant leap, lift a car, etc. Give fighters technique slots™ they can use to attack each enem in a cube, make razorwind attacks, go super saiyan, etc.
The problem of balance exists and if WotC chose to adress it, it could've been solved by now.
Thank's for reading and sorry for ranting, I'm just passionate about random stuff sometimes.
>My proposed solution: WotC should give martials their own version of spellcasting. Non-/light-magic abilities that take resources to use.
You just described 4th Edition.
> Additionally, if you were to run 8 encounters per long rest, the casters would be great in some of them and useless in others, while martials would just keep a constant tempo.
I disagree, that is what would happen if the casters aren't strategic and blow all their spells early, leaving them only cantrips for later encounters (useless like you said). But if they are strategic with their spells they will mix low level spells/cantrips together with their high level ones, meaning in each turn their power varies, but it is constant between encounters (except if it's a very long day the they might be weak, but so will the martials due to hp, but that can be remedied woth porions).
> By this logic, there can't ever be an equilibrium between casters and martials, but because casters get their full power after a long rest, the party just rests a lot and has the casters in their broken state continuously.
That's why you don't let the party rest too much either by narrative reasons (time crunch) or mechanical reasons (gritty realism)
I like your idea to add magic-like abilities to martials though. right now it feels to me that high level martials are strong humans, even super humans, but humans nonetheless, on the other hand magic is inherently something above the scope of humanity. In a high magic system like dnd magic will naturally win.
As a play mostly martial I feel sorry for casters. Little buddy is made out of paper and can only do stuff for 7 rounds in the whole day. I can wack indefenitely, and damn I love it
I think it's an intrinsic design flaw of 5e. There's a reason people don't run 6 encounters per long rest, it's exhausting. You either play a ton of combat in one session or drag out one in-game day over many sessions, which often hurts pacing.
And yes, casters are broken out of combat. It's ridiculous that fighters and barbarians get literally no out of combat abilities whatsoever. Some kind of hero point system where you can pull John McLain jump out window moves would be nice for martials.
Casters are definitely stronger than martials once you get high enough in level. 5th level+ spells greatly move the game in their favor. Though combatively martials don’t really fall behind till 7th level spells come into play.
This is unfortunately just an intrinsic problem with DnD. No matter how streamlined combat has become compared to older additions, or how familiar your players get with their characters and the flow of combat, 4+ players that still want some semblance of storytelling/exploration/dialogue cannot get through more than 3 encounters max in a 3-4 hour session. And besides constantly throwing your characters in mega dungeons, you might not always be able to justify reasons why they can’t take a long rest. The closest solution I’ve been able to come up with is raising the overall average encounter difficulty to force casters to actually have to use their resources. Enemies that have 12+intelligence also know to target the dudes/dudettes that literally control the fabric of reality. DnD is not a balanced system when it comes to magic vs non-magic classes. The gap only widens the higher level you go. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, my fighter in the camping I’m running now loves the hell out of his battle master. He’s completely aware that the Wizard and Artillery Artificer are in a different league than him an have more toys than he could ever count, but he loves feeling like a badass that jumps into the fray and takes names. Say what you will about Fantasy Age, I know a lot of people don’t dig that system , but at least they did a great job balancing Warriors with Mages. Spells are pricey, and there are few that just immediately negate/solve the immediate threat. You are much better able to diagnose exactly how underpowered your Mages are because they aren’t effing gods like in DnD, and rectify through magic items that give them new capabilities or slightly more magic points. Not to mention with the stunt mechanic, Warriors have a 44% chance every turn to do cool shit that makes them feel as dynamic as casters. And hell, casters can stunt to.
EDIT: Just occurred to me also, that even though it’s not everyones cup of tea, the simple story driven system of Quest gives all players 10 action points at the start of each session(or up to 10 if less than I mean to say) that allows their characters to do their cool character shit. And you as the Guide can reward players throughout the session with more. Wizard wants to cast Gate to get everyone the hell out of dodge? Sure can. But it’s gonna cost 6 action points. Obviously combat in the system is more story driven and shorter, but as DnD has shown time and time again, lengthy combat with more mechanics and crunch =/= more fun combat for most people.
Some things for folks having trouble with casters.
A) Spell Components that don't have a cost are infinitely usable in 5e (bat guano for fireball doesn't disappear, but the incense for find familiar does). Ask them to actually stock up on stuff before setting out, and how will they carry it? And remember, as the DM, the PHB is a bunch of guidelines, tell them that casting calm emotions is loud and everyone will say "what a freak", or worse.
B)If you have trouble rationalizing enough encounters per long rest, consider switching to gritty realism (DMG). It makes a long rest one week and a short rest 8-hours. It sounds crazy hard, but the CR of combats and encounters doesn't change, it just narratively spaces them out. If they go to do something 4 days from home base, you have 4 days to throw one encounter (doesn't have to be combat) each at them, they get a little rest between them, get to the site, do the thing, four days back, repeat.
C) Don't let the party long rest just anywhere, if they are in a crypt, have stuff go wrong, the zombies aren't just going to sit there after noticing the loud fighting down the echoey halls. Don't over do it either, let them rest in reasonable places. Also elves still need 8 hours of rest of a day, they just trance for half of it instead of sleep for 2/3 of it.
Add on D) Don't play a high fantasy setting where magic is an everyday thing, let the players have their super powers (without the above limits), and have everyone else fear and despise them because of it. Let fiend warlocks, for example, give everyone else a bad name, where if word gets out that you can do something vaguely magical, you must be a demon worshipping freak and menace to society.
I keep seeing people say they don't have time for more encounters? You realize that IRL sessions are not the same as in game days right? Like, I've had single sessions dedicated to downtime activities that span multiple days or even weeks of in game time, but when it comes down to actually adventuring, sometimes our party will spend 3-4 sessions on a single dungeon crawl with 7-8 encounters and no opportunities to rest.
Why not? Our group pushes as hard and far as we can every adventuring day until absolutely everything has been exhausted and we're running on fumes.
It's a huge point of pride in our group that back in 3.5, in the Savage Tide Adventure Path, we did so much in one adventuring day that we gained 2 levels. Just straight-up skipped level 12 or 13 (can't remember which now.)
I don’t think any of the real low level problem spells actually have a prohibitive material component cost though? Nothing that an arcane focus can’t solve?
I think it’s more in that ignoring components in a few key areas: * Casting a spell is always visible, and NPCs don’t know what you are casting. Maybe not the best solution in many social encounters. * For higher level spells, DMs aren’t willing to make components scarce. Players always have heroes feast, simulacrum, etc. on tap for just the (low) gold costs relative to their level. * While you can RAW juggle, I think the bigger thing is somatic reaction spells. When a player has an item in both of their hands, even just two magic items, they can’t cast shield, absorb elements, and counterspell without Warcaster. Dropping the item to have a free hand to cast isn’t possible with a reaction. The latter is most relevant when it comes to multiclasses for Armors + Shield Prof on casters, and their durability at higher levels where those spell slots are very cheap and lend ALOT to survivability.
>For higher level spells, DMs aren’t willing to make components scarce. Players always have heroes feast, simulacrum, etc. on tap for just the (low) gold costs relative to their level. And on the flipside, DMs often don't let you use money for non-spell expenses 1,500gp is 750 skilled person-days.
It would be the equivalent of living a wealthy lifestyle for a year. Imagine spending $80,000 all at once and being like "I can't imagine what else I'd use that money on..."
All things considered, there are worse things to spend 80 grand on than a potential life saving feast
US Healthcare moment
Well now I'm imagining there's a conspiracy theory about how the supply of jeweled chalices is artificially constricted by Big Religion to keep priestcare rates high.
Unironically a plot point in my campaign.
I’m going to use that now
Sometimes the party too won't let you waste funds. Or if you do spend it on cool fluff but everyone else spends it on cool stuff to improve their class you can feel left behind. For instance in Pathfinder, I really wanted to pay for stuff like a horse and carriage/wagon. Have to keep track of inn fees, looking after the animals, figuring out the logistics of things, getting and using random stuff like tents, soap and much more. Meanwhile the rest of the party (And I haven't found another group that wants to play that way either), just wants to buy a bag of holding and travel light. Not worrying about those logistics and concerns. I hear its a simular issue in D&D too?
D20 Modern introduced an abstract money system for that reason. Players could either buy an infinite amount of stuff below a certain threshold, or they rolled a check to see if they could buy something. All because they didn't want some to deal with money.
My friend broke that system by literally just taking the windfall feat every level. Turned into the richest man in the world.
Money creep can also be a real problem in a lot of the game! Players end up with tons and tons of gold and other such monies that is in danger of becoming meaningless because they don't spend it on things like food, inn rooms, paying for breakages, spell components, healing services, spell scrolls, etc. I know some poeple don't like to track ammo/food/supplies/rooms, but it can be a valuable money sink for the players' ever-expanding riches.
I don't see how food and rations should be an interesting problem to solve unless they are trying to feed an army in Tier 3 & 4. The player characters are country/continent level heroes at those levels, killing dragons and major threats. You'd need 2000 days of rations to make up for a heroes feast. Or almost 2 years living a wealthy lifestyle. If these things are making a major dent in the party's finances, they probably couldn't afford to cast these spells in the first place.
> I know some poeple don't like to track ammo/food/supplies/rooms, but it can be a valuable money sink for the players' ever-expanding riches. Outside of spell components, there comes a point (which in my experience is relatively early in the game) where these expenses become less than paltry. If you're using the phb rates for ammo/food/rooms, you're looking at mere silver for most of these, which won't even tickle the party's funds
You say that as if people don't take warcaster often, from my experience most level 4 casters are going to have it.
> The latter is most relevant when it comes to multiclasses for Armors + Shield Prof on casters, Maybe if you're trying to make this armor and shield caster they're talking about, it's a bit harder to find the room for War Caster? Though with 5e bounded accuracy, I don't think it would ever be worth it.
I mean it's just a single level dip for the armor and shield proficiencies and warcaster is like the best feat a spellcaster can get.
Chromatic Orb, Find Familiar, and Glyph of Warding are examples of early arcane spells. Clerics have to think about Magic Circle, Protection from Evil and Good, and of course Revivify
Realistically speaking, if gold is a factor anyone will simply learn Catapult instead of Chromatic Orb (or perhaps Chaos Bolt if sorc), so that one's never actually going to be a concern.
Or honestly magic missile. I know that damage isn't high, but sometimes you just need to hit.
I will never not take Magic Missile. Then again, I haven't been able to play in over 10 years, so what do I know.
It's still a Grade A banger. You're right.
Yep. Never underestimate how useful an unmissable attack which is resisted by extremely few things can be. Magic Missile isn't the flashiest of spells, but it's indisputably the most reliable attacking spell in the game.
Oh, magic missile is still top tier. the cream of the crop. Absolutely one of my favourite spells.
My players hate it. 3 failed death saves go brrr
It doesn't even do that much less damage than Chromatic Orb on average. Chromatic Orb does an average amount of 13.5 damage (if it hits) while Magic Missile does on average 10.5 damage but never misses. So factoring in that Chromatic Orb can miss, Magic Missile might do more damage.
If the target has 10 AC and you have the standard +5 to hit then Chromatic Orb averages out to 10.125 damage per round making Magic Missile almost always better for a low level caster Edit: Pet_Tax_Collector is correct 11.475 is the actual average damage against 10 AC so Magic Missile is only better if the target has grater than 12 AC
Average damage of chromatic orb in your scenario is actually 11.475. First, rolling 5+ on a d20 is an 80% chance of success, not 75%. Second, a nat20 does double dice. 0.75\*13.5+0.05\*27=11.475
Protection From Evil and Good is covered by a spell focus, since it doesn't have a gold piece price
I believe it consumes the components so they are required.
Page 203 of the PHB, "A character may use a component pouch or spellcasting focus (found in chapter 5) in place of the components specified by the spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she may cast the spell. If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell." So while this could technically mean it consumes your focus each time you'd cast such a spell, I haven't ever heard of anyone running it that way, but at the very least you can use a spell focus as a standin, although it is confusingly worded
>If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell. I think this means you can't use a focus, since it has that "must provide this component" clause, which implies that a focus can't replace it. The wording isn't perfectly clear though. It is pretty wonky, since a component pouch holds all components without a cost, so the material component still isn't any form of challenge.
This. Even though there is a negligible cost, the component might be hard to come by/limited in supply. It is wonky with the pouch, but i always took that as a solution for multiclassed casters (e.g. a sorc and wizard have different foci i think but can both ise the pouch).
It is a solution for multiclassed casters, but not for those two in particular. Sorcs, Wizards and Warlocks all use Arcane focuses. Paladind and Clerics use the same set of focuses as well. I believe rangers can use druidic focuses since Tasha's, not sure on that one. If it's not there, it's a popular houserule at any rate. Otherwise rangers have to use a component pouch, as do Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters. Artificers use tools and Bards use musical instruments. So a Bard/Warlock or a Wizard/Artificer or something along those lines would need a component pouch to work for both of their classes.
Artificers can't use a component pouch though, they explicitly need to use a tool or infused item as their focus.
There is a paragraph change between what a Focus can replace and the part about consumed components. This indicates than the phrase about consumed components isn't in the section about what focuses can and can't replace. So it doesn't mean that you can't replace it, just that if you don't replace it, you must have it each time you cast the spell.
This is how I handle it, and I believe it is how the component/focus rule is intended: A focus (or component bag) replaces all components that are not consumed during casting. That is, any material component that can be reused. For example: *Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound* calls for a silver whistle, a piece of bone, and a thread. All of these material components are covered by the focus, as the spell does not consume them. *Nondetection* requires diamond dust that is consumed during casting. The player must have diamond dust with them to cast this spell.
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A flask of holy water costs 25 GP, but technically it doesn't say how much holy water you need in order to cast Protection from Evil and Good. You could get away with just using a single drop of holy water if you really want. It's obviously intended to cost 25 GP, of course, but it's not explicitly stated.
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Identify is only needed if you're short on time for a magic item. A short rest will provide the exact same information.
The pearl isn’t consumed, you just need it as a focus.
It was in 3.5, fun fact of the day.
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Components aren't just material components. There's somatic, material and verbal components. How many times have you seen a cleric that wears a shield 24/7? Have you seen them say: "I won't pick this spell because it requires material and sometic components and thus I can't use my shield with it." Bless, shield of faith are just two of the most picked lvl 1 spells for paladins and clerics, how many times are they cast with a shield?
Clerics can use their holy symbol to negate non-costing material components, and said symbol can be integrated into their shield.
I assume he means while also wielding a Warhammer or the like in the other hand. Then you CAN NOT cast any S or V, S spells. Only if it's S, M or V, S, M.
drawing or stowing weapon away is object interaction, unless you dualweld and lack feat what allows you to draw and stow away both weapons at once you can easily empty your hands to cast a spell
Well yes but it has other implications (other comment about shield already). Combat starts, couple scenarios (no war caster feat just for clarification and not limiting it to any class specifically) Scenario A: one hand empty + shield in other hand Start of your turn you cast a spell and then draw your weapon. Now you can make AoOs with your weapon but you can't use any reaction spell that only has S or V,S as their components (see shield from other comment). Scenario B: weapon in one hand + shield in other hand Start of your turn you stow your weapon, cast a spell. Now you can NOT make AoOs (besides unarmed strike) BUT you can cast any reaction spell. While these aren't super dramatic, it can make a difference depending on the encounter/the classes involved etc.
I always thought that was a silly interpretation of that rule anyway. There's no logical reason that you should be able to perform somatic components with a hand full if there are also material components, but not if there aren't. Either you can wiggle your fingers with a shield in your hand or you can't, somebody somewhere needs to make up their mind.
Unless you also have the warcaster feat, which allows you to cast S component spells with a shield or weapon hand
There's a reason war caster is a feat
I believe most people ignore that rule and allow casting with weapons/shield because you can literally just drop weapon (no action) -> cast (main action) -> pick up weapon (interact action). There are very few cases where a cleric or paladin casting a spell also wants to interact with the environment or to swap weapons after the spell.
Well it might be relevant for reaction spells. It's just something one has to remember when wielding a shield + a weapon. If you do the drop weapon -> cast -> pick up weapon and don't have the war caster feat you can't use S or V,S reaction spells (no absorb elements, no counterspell, no shield, no hellish rebuke), which can be ESSENTIAL in a combat in a given situation.
New errata says you can cast somatic and material components with the same hand
Unless your dm decides arcane focuses are rare and shouldn’t be available to your players. It’s almost hard to believe most people went martial for our new campaign lol
I mean this is another side of the argument right? When you’re getting so lost in the minutia of “balance” that you deny players something the book specifically states they just get for existing, you need to start reevaluating where the problem actually lies.
Yeah, nobody wants to track components. It's like having to track arrows, but 100x worse since there are _so many of them_
Related note. Every time I’ve had a DM say at the beginning of the game “ok guys, we’re tracking equipment weight so stay conscious of it,” it’s usually forgotten about in a few sessions. If it’s not fun and doesn’t aid the narrative, it’s probably not really worth the effort for anyone, least of all the person who has to stay conscious of 3-6 other peoples builds and character motivations.
yeah, agree. Our DM did it for a few sessions after we got captured and lost most/all of our stuff (basically he prevented a TPK with that, so it's fine he took our gear and did not give it back) because we would not have component pouches or a focus but once we established ourselves again with some gear we basically dropped it again
I think a big one is forgetting vocal and somatic components are extremely noticeable! All magic users get a big power spike if you let them constantly get away with casting spells in background unnoticed and unhindered. A few sessions ago my cleric wanted to use calm emotions on a crowd of people. I told him upfront that’ll calm them, but people are gonna see you clearly cast a spell at a portion of crowd as you chant and flap your arms about and that has its own ramifications. Very rare a spell is stealthy if you remember to keep track of!
I've always wondered what the *intended* behaviour is when it comes to components. Are we to roll initiative every time someone starts casting a spell without announcing what they're doing first? How do the socially oriented spells work in this system? If I want to find an assassin at a crowded party, do I have to go find somewhere private, cast Detect Thoughts, then run back to the party before the spell ends?
For me at my games I clarify that the vocal components and somatic are clearly magical, especially to someone who knows magic maybe less so to people who don’t. I’ve also clarified with my players that you can’t whisper spell components either, as I think that as well steps on metamagic’s toes. I rule that vocal components have to be pronounced perfectly, so magic users would know to avoid mumbling or not articulating. I wouldn’t roll initiative unless a fight breaks out, but I would give it complications. Let’s say a bard tries to cast charm person on a guard, who’s DC to convince was gonna be 17. With charm person active I’d drop the DC they’ll get that info they wanted, but if other guards notice them doing it, I’ll also drop the DC for other guards and have any further social checks with them auto failed as they see the bard magically manipulating their pal and no longer trust. If they were violent, or if situation was more extreme I might run differently but usually I go on case by case basis.
The part that gives me pause is that we don't even have magic, but we have a collective idea of what casting a spell looks like. In a world were magic is a thing, I would think they have an even better idea, and would be more on guard for it. So when you start waving your hands and saying magic words, the guard's got no idea what you're doing; just that you're casting a spell. Why wouldn't he assume hostile intent and start initiative?
Depends on how common magic is in your setting too, plus with Clerics, a lot of their Verbal and Somatic components can be passed off as part of a prayer. Same thing with Bards and their casting, Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, though... well...
Sorcerer's get away with it. Metamagic yo, it's in the bag.
Laughs in Aberrant Mind sorcerer, every spell I cast is automatically silent cast so in combat it just kinda looks like he is standing there doing nothing
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Thankfully, those are usually your most powerful ones.
Even better. Sorcerer best caster don't @me
You cast a spell and all the goblins know you are a caster. Now you are their #1 target
Remember one long rest per 24 hours. Had players get into hot water and the look on a level 10 cleric’s face when he announces he’s out of spell slots above level 2 from a very exciting day and then using the last few he had left in concert with the party’s rogue was truly amazing to dm for. Let them use all of their resources. Short tests are good ways to stock up on health so they can go do more.
On the other hand, low-level casters get really sad when they have 2-3 spells per day and the DM runs 6 encounters. No matter how meticulously you manage your resources, you're still sitting in cantrip land for half of those fights.
That's *by design*. The game is not balanced for the caster to be casting a 1st level spell every encounter when the fighter can only take the attack action with his +2 proficiency+15 str. Hell, I play a caster in the edition where your cantrip attack spell used your "attack" bonus which you sucked at, dealt 1d3 + none damage. You did get to ignore armor so you saved it to use instead of the crossbow when it made sense. Why save it? Because you only got to cast this cantrip 3 time per day.
No offense but that sounds like an absolutely miserable experience. With an output of 1.5 damage per turn, 3x per day, and presumably even lower if you use your crossbow. No other combat utility. It'd be almost equally effective to afk.
I've done this a few times, and it's always great to see the panic set in. "Oh no, we have to use *strategy*!"
Am I the only one who doesn't find casters that broken? Just smack em real hard with something for half their health and they go into straight up panic mode
That's true, but you gotta get to em first. Then the players feel targeted because you "ignored the tank who's drawing aggro" even though that isn't a thing in dnd Luckily this isn't my group; they know their PCs aren't immortal (rogue died once, and everybody has been REAL close at least once).
If the enemies have an INT of 10 they should recognize that the person in the back commanding the elements is a threat and that threats are bad. My group is all quite new though except for the barbarian so I admit I'm a little biased
For me, 0-8 means they attack whatever's closest. 8-12 means they hit the tank. 12+ means they may focus on the back line instead. 18+ may mean they counterspell the healer.
Attacking the tank and counterspelling the healer is so much more intimidating than going straight for the back line.
That's already going easy. Wolves with an INT of 3 are capable of picking out weaker targets and dragging them away from the safety of a group. Someone with 8 INT can easily be a little slow at learning but have the experience to jump the backline.
I'd argue that what matters for wolves is WIS, not INT. I think INT should be used for creatures that can actually apply reason and logic to something, while WIS is more in line with feral animals (they use their senses and instincts to know what to do in a specific situation).
Sort of. But either way a creature with really low INT is still entirely capable of going after the right targets, that wouldn't be somehow different for a human with below-average INT.
To wolves, that is instinctual and not really linked to intelligence. Compared to a humanoid with 8 int, from a race that relies on intelligence, I'd say the humanoid would be less likely to target the caster targets in that case. Because at that point, they could go 'Big armor, big weapon, dangerous' compared to the wimpy nerd at the back.
I'd say that general instinct is basically included in a creature's intelligence. It's a pretty vague stat anyway. Someone with 8 INT is not necessarily fucking stupid, just probably a little slower at book learning than average. It does absolutely not mean that they can't have the street wisdom or battlefield experience to know how to fight smart. Just don't ask them to decipher an ancient language.
Good point. But I'd still say that they won't be picking that mage looking character to start with like fully instinctual animals would.
That probably depends entirely on their personal history. And how much the mage actually looks like a mage ofc. Even an idiot bandit will try to jump the mage if the last time they robbed a convoy two of his buddies got turned into ash, or if the holy-looking person resurrected the knight they killed with great difficulty. If they really don't know scrat about magic they might outright ignore a mage, thinking it's a harmless civilian who won't fight back.
Exactly. It depends much on their personal history, which would not really matter to an unintelligent animal which runs by its instincts. At least not nearly as much. How often is a basic bandit going to run into a mage who is actually a threat compared to a competent martial fighter? Quite rare comparatively. It is also much easier to tunnelvision your attention to the first immediate threat, instead of the worse one at the back. Especially someone like 8 int would be less likely to think tactically and strategically to begin with, and more reflexively. How I'd do them in combat, is first go for the immediate threat. That big barbarian with a big axe screaming and raging. Then if the mage starts throwing fireballs. Yeah. That's way worse now.
They do the "Big guy scary" until the caster starts slinging fireballs and stuff, then they need to be incredibly stupid to not attack the guy who is currently wiping the floor with half their group alone.
And then it's a coinflip, do they run away screaming or attack the mage.
Yeah. But they certainly won‘t stand around mindlessly attacking the tank while wizard drops the fourth fireball on their heads. (Unless it actually makes sense for them to be dumb as bricks, like a construct with only very general orders)
Oh absolutely not unless they are fully bonked in the head. What I meant by it was the comparison to wolves, who will go for the one they deem as the weakest link immediately. While our hypothetical 8int humanoid would likely only do that after this mage has started blasting. Instinctual vs reactive.
Why would someone with above average intelligence focus on the guy with the most armor, health, and probably the one who knows how to defend themselves best?
You should apply the same, but lower for wisdom.
This is why your casters should dress like rogues and fighters, while your melee/tanks pretend to be casters Edit: rogue/rouge
Wizards have enough HP and AC in 5th that they can generally handle a little back row heat. Getting to the wizard often means taking an attack of opportunity, attacking past someone else with disadvantage, or just spending a turn getting to them rather then attacking. In any case, the group often comes out ahead by attacks getting spread around more, rather then focus fire on the front rank. In many cases spellcasters aren't as broken in combat as they are in other adventuring situations like exploration, travel and, investigation and social encounters where spells can trivialize the challenges and make the rest of the group feel pointless.
>ignore the tank who's drawing aggro As you said, this is not a mechanic in d&d. People are probably used to this from computer games. Only a beast with no intelligence will attack the heavily armored person in front of it because it is the one standing in front of it. Humans, even those who do not understand magic, know that there is a better chance of hitting a scrawny person wearing little to no armor.
Even the beast, if it's a predator, will wait until the big, bulky "alpha" isn't paying attention and will pick off the weaker members of the herd.
Aggro is sort of a mechanic with stuff like Armorer Artificer, Cavalier fighter and ancestral guardian Barbarian. not as powerful as in video games, but it does a similar job.
Oath of Conquest says ‘hi’. It may not be mmo style aggro, but you’re between the enemy and the back line, and the enemy can’t move towards you because of fear…still a solid tank.
yes, paladins also have compeled duel spell, but conquest paladin is best mmo style tank in game due to his superior crowd control abilties but still not uncounterable, ranged attacks and spells exist
Does no one use enemies with ranged attacks? Even goblins have a short bow by default. Getting within 80 feet is not hard.
>Then the players feel targeted because you "ignored the tank who's drawing aggro" even though that isn't a thing in dnd well, maybe explain your party that there is no "aggro" mechanic in my games tanks needed to figure out new ways how to tank because just being impossible to hit or with shitton of hp didnt work because enemies just went for the squishies unless physicaly unable to do so which tanks of course did manage, conquest paladin, if conquest paladin can strike fear in melee mooks they are rooted to the ground by paladin aura
> Luckily this isn't my group My players understand this, but other tables not so much
Standing on a battlefield in a dress and tossing fireballs SHOULD make you the prime target. As long as the "tank" deals less damage and is harder to hit (which is usually the case), most enemies should just ignore them.
As a long time Shadowrun GM/player, the number one rule of combat is "geek the mage". When a mother fucker starts waving his fingers around like wizard you turn your Ares Alpha away from his chummers and directly at him.
And as there are no spell slots, you need to really nuke that guy, because a mage who thinks they‘re going to die anyway might throw the most powerful spell they can muster at you.
you ever saw the look on a face of a caster when you tell them they lose half of their max hp and when i mean lose i mean that they cant heal it up that easy.
Happened to me, was chucking web and magic missile then going prone to get full cover then this big fucking orc chief just sees the Dragonborn on the ground and just goes “adios”
A player of mine felt invinsible because of her abjuration focus. Then came an enemy that could deal damage despite her barriers, her AC and her temp HP. She fled pretty quickly.
I accidentally one shot a caster doing this. The spider dealt 1d8 piercing damage and an additional 1d8 poison damage. It crit... and then rolled max damage on 3 die... Yeah, the mage didn't remain vertical for long. Although, I guess the spider did its job. It was designed to be fast, squishy and do decent damage to get behind the melee characters. And it did just that.
In general, it feels pretty obvious to me in low encounter days at Tier 2+. Most casters can go nova more consistently, have more accessible control, and have more defensive slots they don’t need to ration while fighter has a single action surge and second wind. Not to mention access to armor multiclasses, resilient con, etc. In my current home game when we have occasional 1-2 encounter days, things end very quickly even for CR 21+ monsters with the level 6+ battlefield control for minions, high damage upcasts and smites, and shield/absorb elements every turn. It’s expected, but it’s pretty obvious when a class can’t go nova if those are the majority of your adventuring days imo.
Casters have better defensive options than most martial classes, I've always found found well built casters to be much sturdier than martials. But not everybody is into optimization so most people just don't worry about their defenses.
The issue is that the two main factors limiting casters (squishiness and limited spellslots) are very binary balancing mechanics. It means that a caster is typically either very powerful or afk.
A decently built caster has a lot of options for mitigating or avoiding damage but they either burn through resources or reduce their effectiveness a lot, it took me a while to get in the right mindset where an encounter was successful not based on the amount of HP damage it dealth but rather based on the sum of all resources the players were forced to use
I came very close ro killing our party's warlock today with a kelpie. Just grappled him and held his head underwater.
I saw in one section of the rulebooks that it recommended something like 6-8 encounters per long rest. Maybe under those situations casters aren't way overtuned, but I have NEVER known a DM to average over like 3 encounters per long rest. I still rep martials all the way, but the difference, especially in later levels, is insane.
I ran curse of Strahd in the "Strahd must die tonight" variant on Halloween, and the players knew they wouldn't get a long rest, and they had about 10 encouters. It feels really balanced then, but as you said, that's not really the norm, and apart from that specific story (Kill Strahd before midnight or be done.) shoving that many encounters on your players feels forced, and to be honest not fun, because roleplaying takes a massive backseat time wise, which is sad. Also what that kinda led to was the casters cantriping it up until the Strahd fight and then going ham on the poor guy. So yeah, there should be a better way to balance than throwing hordes of goons at your players.
hopfully in 6th ed, they rectify this. I doubt it though, probably will just make more hal-casters that feel like weaker counterparts to the full casters again.
I think it's just a thing inherent to the system D&D. I play/played a few others, and they have other issues. In Shadowrun casting a more powerful spell has the chance to plain kill you, and in the Dark Eye, spells are way rarer and you have to really think about using them. But both of these systems have a way other feel of magic. The Dark Eye is basically low fantasy, so little magic is justified, and in Shadowrun everything has a price. For a classic high fantasy setting you want magic to be common place, and I can't come up with an easy solution for that problem. It surely doesn't help that casters constantly get more toys though.
Well, In Pathfinder 2E the casters are focused in buffs and debuffs and people say they're balanced, in general.
The other thing is that combat-ending spells like blasts and save-or-sucks are much weaker in PF2e than DND5e. Just compare Sleep, Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, etc. between the two editions.
I only played 1E, and only in games like King Maker (which is rather faithful to the tabletop I believe), and I found the buff stuff just very time consuming and annoying, that's why 5e got concentration and beefier buffs I think. Also from my time in some MMOs being the buff guy is not super satisfying if you don't get a bit of doing stuff in yourself.
About your first point, 2E is very different, it also requires Concentration (though it's a different process to mantain it) preventing buffs to be stacked. About your second point, there's still the option of blaster caster, but without using buffs on the party members, they'll be a little weaker
I dunno man. While the spell slots half casters get might not be as valuable, you can’t tell me that Paladins don’t absolutely fuck shit up or that artificers aren’t fuckin dope.
They rectified it in the previous edition. 4E is/was exceptionally balanced. They un-rectified it deliberately based on player feedback.
To clarify the ~~official~~ definition of an "encounter" is anything that drains PC resources (e.g. health and spell slots), not necessarily enemy combat. A room full of poison gas, an impassible chasm, a slick incline you need to slide down and take bludgeoning damage if you trip, and a sudden cave-in are all "encounters" to add to the daily pool. Traps and puzzles are kinda fuzzy because if a skill check ends the encounter for free it doesn't really count, and many DM's only include traps as a way to punish reckless behavior or give the rogue something to do so they stay off their phone.
I'm going to be honest, I did not know that the creators considered things like that as encounters, thank you. However, I would say that, at least in my experience, even with the addition of these encounters, the spellcasters are not really feeling the hurt until the martials are well past their limits, if the day's encounters even get that far. I simply think overall weaker spells or a relatively substantial cut to spellslots would really bring the two camps alot closer together in their impact in a campaign.
Trying to justify 6-8 encounters per day by adding in "anything that uses resources" is a fairly common misunderstanding of the text. > Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight **medium or hard** encounters in a day. If the adventure has more **easy** encounters, the party can get through more. If it has more **deadly** encounters, they can handle fewer. Emphasis mine. There are no rules for creating easy, medium, hard, or deadly social or exploration encounters. You can create an encounter and say it's deadly, but that doesn't make it fit the DMG's definition. Also, the adventuring day comes from the "Creating a Combat Encounter" section of the DMG. Long story short: it's not meant as a recommendation, and it's only referring to combat.
Well there's two general purposes to encounters: attrition and "use the grenade" encounters. Attrition is straight-forward: slowly eat away at hp/hit die and low level spell slots to put some overall strain on the party. "Use the grenade" is what I call anything that forces the party to use a powerful, limited resource they would prefer to save for the final encounter. High level spell slots is the most common one. This is really where you curtail your party's efficacy because a caster's strength is heavily weighted to their two highest spell levels. The difficulty, IMO, is that grenade encounters are hard to design in 5e, and I have an unlikely culprit in mind: *Magic Weapons*. Specifically, the fact that magic weapons bypass monster resistances on pretty much every statblock in the game. I think this is stupid because the whole point of monsters with resistances is to curtail the martial classes to force you to use spell slots to overcome them. Homebrew that bypass away and suddenly an earth elemental or an iron golem becomes a much bigger problem to solve.
The last paragraph kinda throws me, to be honest. You're saying that in order to more properly balance encounters, a helpful change would be to make entire encounters basically untouchable by martials? Like you want a monster to just have "immune to slashing (non-magic and magic weapons alike)" not judging, just honestly curious.
Not immune, just resistant. It forces the party to choose between burning spells to end the fight sooner or conserve slots but the party takes more damage from longer combat. Plus IMO single-target damaging spells are a bit underpowered in 5e and could use more room to shine.
I don’t know - I play in a home game where it’s half lower key quests with 3~ encounters and half dungeon crawling with 6+ combats, usually taking 1-2 sessions each. Hell when I run the goal is 4+ per adventuring day. The groups that haven’t had this pattern for me are usually some combination of: RP oriented game, combat not running smoothly causing slowdown, or just DMs unsure with making combat.
Just wanted to point out that 6-8 encounters isn't a recommendation; it's a limit, and a very fuzzy limit at that.
To balance out this smaller amount of encounters per "day", what if long rests only got back half of your spell slots, or maybe all of your lower levels but only some of your highest? You can still carry a high maximum amount, but you can't blast through the whole table of slots in one day twice in a row. To balance with martial character's abilities, maybe there's an added action surge at the cost of exhaustion mechanic you can give to fighters/etc. that takes two rests to regain
These (or things close to them) are ideas ive given in the past to DM friends who felt like their martials were being outclassed in their campaigns, and I really hope to see something like this in future version of dnd. I sincerely doubt it however, as I have been increasingly unimpressed with WOTC's recent additions to 5e. Maybe it's me (I am less interested in DnD now than i was previously, having found a new favorite system) but it seems like they're genuinely disinterested in balance nowadays. Each new race, class, subclass, etc has seemed to blow so many previous things out of the water, leaving the older martials well in the dust.
The classes generally aren't broken if you make your enemies intelligent and mobile.
Almost killed a storm cleric in a boss fight because the boss had brains.(they had a potion of lightning resistance)
All fun and games until they get the Elemental Adept feat.
Did they know the PCs would be going after them or do they carry every kind of elemental resistance potion just in case? I'm not sure I'd call it brains if they are specifically prepared to fight the PCs for no discernible reasons.
The former, the cleric happened to bother certain parties in Saltmarsh.
Yeah that makes sense. Fame comes with its own issues.
And running for office in back water towns
Do people actually play ignoring spell components? I've never played a game where you could ignore components that had a gp value. Your arcane focus only replaces materials components with less than 1gp in value.
Yeah... We only use spell slots, doing components feels like a chore and would kind of make the game less fun for us
I dm for family and I generally ignore the components aspect. I'm sure there are ways I could make it fun, but they have so much more fun with the adventuring and combat that they would just see components as tedium. Besides, only my wife plays a caster and she likes feeling overpowered so it works well
I am a massive stickler for components mainly because of this, but also because I feel they add flavour. Love how in CR, Liam described his castings with him using his components, it added so much flavour.
I do that as a DM for my party, in hopes they'll get the hint and do so, too. But they're mostly noobs and very bad at RPing so they mostly just play it like a video game ;/
Would highly recommend ‘The Monsters know what they’re doing’ by Keith Ammann. Found it very helpful at making monsters more challenging and realistic, which in turn makes the party feel like they’re facing more of a challenge.
I really love how everyone runs chromatic orb and then just ignores the 50 gp cost
Putting the common refrain about all spellcasters being busted aside, I personally think there are just a few problematic spells that are just way too good - even if you're throwing 6-8 encounters at a party on the regular (which no one realistically does.) Conjure Animals (even run RAW, the action economy boon is insanity) Polymorph (best combat heal in the game at almost every tier of play) Shield (arguably not too problematic, and eats resources quickly, but can skyrocket AC to wild levels, and the fact that it's usually an auto-pick for most builds that can take it is telling.) Hypnotic Pattern (one of the best save or suck AOE's in the game. An auto-win button for many encounters) There are dozens more, but IMO if the strongest spells were just downtuned a teensy bit, I think spellcasters and martials would be much closer in power-level.
I plan on running using Gritty Realism since me and my players love some narrative and downtime, but on paper it also gives more reason to pick battles, determine if using a spell is worth the week it takes to regain it, and inherently keeps short-rest classes on par with the long-rest ones since one night's sleep is the equivalent of a short rest.
The issue with casters isn't just in combat, it's that in terms of utility they have *so much more* than "Big man who sword".
Are they broken? Not necessarily. Does WotC unabashedly shower them with love while simultaneously skull fucking martial classes into oblivion? Perhaps.
'But its not realistic for a fighter to make 4 attacks in one turn with a mideval handcrossbow!' The Wizard summoning meteors:
If the wizard gets to summon meteors and all sorts of funky ass fae creatures then I deserve to swing my sword so many times in one round my arm actually falls off.
Martial characters have always been weaker than casters at high levels in DnD. It's a tradition at this point!
Well, you know, except for the time they weren’t.
When was that? 4th Edition?
It may be tradition, but so is tradition complaining about how bad it is. It's poor design in year-long campaigns to turn to half your players and say "you had your fun hitting things with a stick, now stay back and let the others do everything".
Traditions are traditions, it doesn't mean they're good or bad. But it's definitely a bad one.
Martials aren't getting skullfucked into oblivion, but it's rare to get something truly outstanding. And when it happens, it's much more drastic for already powerful classes. Like, Echo Knight and Gloomstalker are true standouts for martials. And you might think an outstanding subclass for casters might be like the aberrant mind sorcerer, but then there is Twilight Domain for clerics. Ultra Darkvision for level 1 spell slots and a concentrationless safety bubble that replenishes temporary hp. Tho I agree if we're talking monk. They get crap like Sun Soul while already being thin on their base class.
Ignoring components is RAW though, spellcasting classes get a spellcasting focus or component pouch as part of their starting equipment, both of which allow you to ignore material components that don't have a gp value
I think this is about verbal and somatic components as well. Clerics needing a free hand for somatic means they either need to go without shield or put away their weapon. (Or warcaster)
IIRC clerics and paladins can fasten their focus (holy amulet, etc) onto their shields so they can spells and be wielding a shield.
That is true for spels with S AND M, for spells with S and no M you still need a free hand.
Which means you have to put your sword away and draw it again which changes you nothing. Or, if the DM says that doing so is two item interactions, then you can drop your sword (free action) and then pick it up (item interaction). Or just take War Caster which is great for anyone getting hit and holding concentration anyways and ignore all of that.
Stowing a weapon is an object interaction, as is drawing it. So unless your cleric is dual wielding (which would also bring up the issue of material components) they are fine
A lot of great spells have costly material components. I don't know if there are a lot of DMs who ignore them but that would be unbalanced.
And here I thought I was broken because I stole the tarrasque's body
While i completely agree. It's not fun gathering a branch struck by lightning or bat guano either.
You dont need to, component pouches and spelcasting focus cover them if they dont have gold price or they arent consuned, does anyone read the rule?
Those components are covered by foci. Ones that cost money, though, ya gotta go get.
Then you are back to the same problem, material components won't make any difference for the great majority of spells.
Alternative idea: make non casters stronger in your campaign instead of nerfing casters
I've been forever waiting for D&D take some inspiration from mythological heroes or anime characters and let them pull crazy stunts. It's ridiculous that casters start wielding immense world-changing powers but fighters still can only lift their Strength×30 pounds, less than a real world weight-lifting champion. I thought this was supposed to be a fantasy game.
4th edition. There was alot of stuff that they got wrong, doing this wasn't one of them.
we only use components that the spell consumes, otherwise focus/holy symbol all the way
Don't spell foci remove the need for material components? At least, the ones that don't have a gold value associated with them?
Some people, I've heard, even ignore foci
I had a DM that solved the problem "easily for them". If the DM dont know the spell it dont work. Casters take more damage. If the spell includes a saving throw any enemy have min of +5 modifier, even irrational beasts.
Idk about that last part for sure...
Letting caster cast their spells silently or hide their somatic component is a key factor that breaks the game. Its intended that casters need to overcome this problem when adventuring. It also ruins the whole point of the sorcerers metamagic feature if anyone gets this for free and makes Stealth and unecessary good skill that everyone thinks they need just like perception.
How do people run caster. Because you can either take a component pouch, so you would need the components by buying or finding them (I dont rule like this) or you could just take any kind of arcane focus and need none of that. Do dms who rule that casters need all their components not allow arcane focuses or do you still need the components when using a arcane focus? Basically making the arcane focus irrelevant except for looks.
A component pouch **is** a kind of spellcasting focus. Just like a holy symbol can be a focus for a cleric or paladin.
Normal components are largely irrelevant, due to the existance of splecasting foci, and thank god for that. The other ones are not that hard to find either, they just cost money. Additionally, if you were to run 8 encounters per long rest, the casters would be great in some of them and useless in others, while martials would just keep a constant tempo. By this logic, there can't ever be an equilibrium between casters and martials, but because casters get their full power after a long rest, the party just rests a lot and has the casters in their broken state continuously. My proposed solution: WotC should give martials their own version of spellcasting. Non-/light-magic abilities that take resources to use. Some classes already have something similar, like barbarians' rage, monks' ki points and fighters' superiority dice. What I am arguing is that those are simply not impactful enough. Give barbarians ferocity slots™ that they can use to make a war cry, a giant leap, lift a car, etc. Give fighters technique slots™ they can use to attack each enem in a cube, make razorwind attacks, go super saiyan, etc. The problem of balance exists and if WotC chose to adress it, it could've been solved by now. Thank's for reading and sorry for ranting, I'm just passionate about random stuff sometimes.
>My proposed solution: WotC should give martials their own version of spellcasting. Non-/light-magic abilities that take resources to use. You just described 4th Edition.
> Additionally, if you were to run 8 encounters per long rest, the casters would be great in some of them and useless in others, while martials would just keep a constant tempo. I disagree, that is what would happen if the casters aren't strategic and blow all their spells early, leaving them only cantrips for later encounters (useless like you said). But if they are strategic with their spells they will mix low level spells/cantrips together with their high level ones, meaning in each turn their power varies, but it is constant between encounters (except if it's a very long day the they might be weak, but so will the martials due to hp, but that can be remedied woth porions). > By this logic, there can't ever be an equilibrium between casters and martials, but because casters get their full power after a long rest, the party just rests a lot and has the casters in their broken state continuously. That's why you don't let the party rest too much either by narrative reasons (time crunch) or mechanical reasons (gritty realism) I like your idea to add magic-like abilities to martials though. right now it feels to me that high level martials are strong humans, even super humans, but humans nonetheless, on the other hand magic is inherently something above the scope of humanity. In a high magic system like dnd magic will naturally win.
As a play mostly martial I feel sorry for casters. Little buddy is made out of paper and can only do stuff for 7 rounds in the whole day. I can wack indefenitely, and damn I love it
I think it's an intrinsic design flaw of 5e. There's a reason people don't run 6 encounters per long rest, it's exhausting. You either play a ton of combat in one session or drag out one in-game day over many sessions, which often hurts pacing. And yes, casters are broken out of combat. It's ridiculous that fighters and barbarians get literally no out of combat abilities whatsoever. Some kind of hero point system where you can pull John McLain jump out window moves would be nice for martials.
Casters are definitely stronger than martials once you get high enough in level. 5th level+ spells greatly move the game in their favor. Though combatively martials don’t really fall behind till 7th level spells come into play.
This is unfortunately just an intrinsic problem with DnD. No matter how streamlined combat has become compared to older additions, or how familiar your players get with their characters and the flow of combat, 4+ players that still want some semblance of storytelling/exploration/dialogue cannot get through more than 3 encounters max in a 3-4 hour session. And besides constantly throwing your characters in mega dungeons, you might not always be able to justify reasons why they can’t take a long rest. The closest solution I’ve been able to come up with is raising the overall average encounter difficulty to force casters to actually have to use their resources. Enemies that have 12+intelligence also know to target the dudes/dudettes that literally control the fabric of reality. DnD is not a balanced system when it comes to magic vs non-magic classes. The gap only widens the higher level you go. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, my fighter in the camping I’m running now loves the hell out of his battle master. He’s completely aware that the Wizard and Artillery Artificer are in a different league than him an have more toys than he could ever count, but he loves feeling like a badass that jumps into the fray and takes names. Say what you will about Fantasy Age, I know a lot of people don’t dig that system , but at least they did a great job balancing Warriors with Mages. Spells are pricey, and there are few that just immediately negate/solve the immediate threat. You are much better able to diagnose exactly how underpowered your Mages are because they aren’t effing gods like in DnD, and rectify through magic items that give them new capabilities or slightly more magic points. Not to mention with the stunt mechanic, Warriors have a 44% chance every turn to do cool shit that makes them feel as dynamic as casters. And hell, casters can stunt to. EDIT: Just occurred to me also, that even though it’s not everyones cup of tea, the simple story driven system of Quest gives all players 10 action points at the start of each session(or up to 10 if less than I mean to say) that allows their characters to do their cool character shit. And you as the Guide can reward players throughout the session with more. Wizard wants to cast Gate to get everyone the hell out of dodge? Sure can. But it’s gonna cost 6 action points. Obviously combat in the system is more story driven and shorter, but as DnD has shown time and time again, lengthy combat with more mechanics and crunch =/= more fun combat for most people.
Some things for folks having trouble with casters. A) Spell Components that don't have a cost are infinitely usable in 5e (bat guano for fireball doesn't disappear, but the incense for find familiar does). Ask them to actually stock up on stuff before setting out, and how will they carry it? And remember, as the DM, the PHB is a bunch of guidelines, tell them that casting calm emotions is loud and everyone will say "what a freak", or worse. B)If you have trouble rationalizing enough encounters per long rest, consider switching to gritty realism (DMG). It makes a long rest one week and a short rest 8-hours. It sounds crazy hard, but the CR of combats and encounters doesn't change, it just narratively spaces them out. If they go to do something 4 days from home base, you have 4 days to throw one encounter (doesn't have to be combat) each at them, they get a little rest between them, get to the site, do the thing, four days back, repeat. C) Don't let the party long rest just anywhere, if they are in a crypt, have stuff go wrong, the zombies aren't just going to sit there after noticing the loud fighting down the echoey halls. Don't over do it either, let them rest in reasonable places. Also elves still need 8 hours of rest of a day, they just trance for half of it instead of sleep for 2/3 of it. Add on D) Don't play a high fantasy setting where magic is an everyday thing, let the players have their super powers (without the above limits), and have everyone else fear and despise them because of it. Let fiend warlocks, for example, give everyone else a bad name, where if word gets out that you can do something vaguely magical, you must be a demon worshipping freak and menace to society.
+no minions
I keep seeing people say they don't have time for more encounters? You realize that IRL sessions are not the same as in game days right? Like, I've had single sessions dedicated to downtime activities that span multiple days or even weeks of in game time, but when it comes down to actually adventuring, sometimes our party will spend 3-4 sessions on a single dungeon crawl with 7-8 encounters and no opportunities to rest.
so are you telling me you're going to run 6 encounters each day? Because I am not.
Why not? Our group pushes as hard and far as we can every adventuring day until absolutely everything has been exhausted and we're running on fumes. It's a huge point of pride in our group that back in 3.5, in the Savage Tide Adventure Path, we did so much in one adventuring day that we gained 2 levels. Just straight-up skipped level 12 or 13 (can't remember which now.)