Well, typically, a martial mostly has to deal with whom to bonk, whereas casters have to choose what spell to use based on expected saving throws and resistances, plus tactical shenanigans like strategic use of illusions and battlefield-shaping spells like wall of force. It indeed is not that difficult, but in comparison to martials, it usually is.
Well - that's like I said: Maybe go for a Wis save rather than a Tou if the enemy is an ogre. But that's so far from rocket science as to hurt the brain. And standing at range pondering where to place your wall of force is also below the threshold to challenge the mental acuity of the average squirrel.
Whereas playing a barbarian actually requires more math than you'd think. I run into four enemies, but expect one to fall because that's what I do. The remaining three will attack, but one will miss. Their damage (they are still ogres) is unpleasant but not catastrophic. Due to Rage I divide by 2. Then comes the tactical layer: I'm doing this in part to kill ogres, but primarily so the ogres will attack me, not the squishy caster fiddling with walls of force, so where do I need to be this round, and next round, to either achieve that, or punish the ogres if they decide to ignore me.
The main difficulty usually associated with casters is looking through a list of a ton of options to choose what spells you want. There's also the resource management aspect, since they're much less useful when they run out of their core resource than martials are. They often have to be more strategic in positioning to stay away from danger, since many casters have fewer defenses than martials and they're often worried about losing concentration.
I feel like you're really overstating how hard it is to play a martial. Barbarians don't (or at least shouldn't) calculate how much damage they take, because in most cases whatever amount of damage they take is damage somebody else isn't taking, which means the barbarian is doing a good job at being a barbarian. Most players won't have much more than a vague idea of how much damage monsters will do anyways, unless their DM lets them look at the MM or they do an obscene amount of math.
And I feel you're really overstation how hard it is to play a caster. Really! What you describe is that it's time consuming - which is not complex, but just boring - and ressource management is just as important to the barbarian. You may realise that neither Rage nor HP are in infinite supply. Also, the strategic positioning of the barbarian is what allows the caster to position safely anywhere on the map.
And all players know how much damage monsters deal. Just .. come on.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Martials have combat utility: they can shove to prone, grapple to basically cast Hold Person without a Str save, and Battle Master has a whole host of things they can do to affect battle (or even have utility outside of combat).
Grapple is a far cry from Hold Person. All it does is reduce movement to 0, which is the least useful part of HP. It can still attack - and the grappler is always right there as a target by necessity - and has no penalties to do so nor is it any more vulnerable. And while there's no save, a contested check is basically the same thing.
Real question. Casters have more options, but ... I play casters. It's not hard. To my thinking, it's basically even. A caster has to maybe figure out [ogres have high health but low wisdom, cast Hold Person rather than Fireball] - whereas the barbarian has to figure out [move to this position, take one AoO, kill one enemy, but then four will attack me for expected X damage (divide by 2 for resistance), then I kill another, reducing my expected incoming damage by Y].
First of all, Hold Person doesn't even work on ogres because they are Giants, not Humanoids. So yeah, casting is pretty easy when you don't actually read the spells or remember the rules around them.
Secondly, I have played several barbarians and never "calculated my expected incoming damage." You Rage and move to a spot where 1) you can hit and 2) you are hopefully not completely overwhelmed by enemies and then just see what happens. Not to downplay the importance of tactical positioning, but you're overstating it here and casters often have to think about positioning as well, factoring in line of sight and the ranges of all of their different spells.
First of all, Hold Person doesn't even work on ogres because they are Giants, not Humanoids. So yeah, casting is pretty easy when you don't actually read the spells or remember the rules around them.
Secondly, I have played several barbarians and never "calculated my expected incoming damage." You Rage and move to a spot where 1) you can hit and 2) you are hopefully not completely overwhelmed by enemies and then just see what happens. Not to downplay the importance of tactical positioning, but you're overstating it here and casters often have to think about positioning as well, factoring in line of sight and the ranges of all of their different spells.
I fairly confident you understand the example, but you're right, Hold Person doesn't work on giants. I looked up ogre, however, on some random source, and it was listed as 'large humanoid'. I don't remember where, but I shrugged my shoulders and went with this example, because I was away from books at work, and who cares anyhow, eh?
So you're bad at playing barbarian - or melee generally - no shame in that. But if you lack the foresight to calculate how long you can last in melee as the tank of the group, maybe you should just stick with something simple, like ... a wizard? =)
Truly - it is vital, when you run in the face of enemies, to have some inkling of how long you can stay there without being reduced to a bothersome stain on the carpets.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You can have an inkling without doing all the complicated math you suggest is necessary. Just think for onesecond, and you can either say "yea I can probably survive for a couple rounds" or "nope I would be dead."
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
First of all, Hold Person doesn't even work on ogres because they are Giants, not Humanoids. So yeah, casting is pretty easy when you don't actually read the spells or remember the rules around them.
Secondly, I have played several barbarians and never "calculated my expected incoming damage." You Rage and move to a spot where 1) you can hit and 2) you are hopefully not completely overwhelmed by enemies and then just see what happens. Not to downplay the importance of tactical positioning, but you're overstating it here and casters often have to think about positioning as well, factoring in line of sight and the ranges of all of their different spells.
I fairly confident you understand the example, but you're right, Hold Person doesn't work on giants. I looked up ogre, however, on some random source, and it was listed as 'large humanoid'. I don't remember where, but I shrugged my shoulders and went with this example, because I was away from books at work, and who cares anyhow, eh?
So you're bad at playing barbarian - or melee generally - no shame in that. But if you lack the foresight to calculate how long you can last in melee as the tank of the group, maybe you should just stick with something simple, like ... a wizard? =)
Truly - it is vital, when you run in the face of enemies, to have some inkling of how long you can stay there without being reduced to a bothersome stain on the carpets.
Wait... You are posting on DnDBeyond but went to some other random site to check on the rules for Ogre? This makes your credibility for the rest of the post questionable at best.
You can have an inkling without doing all the complicated math you suggest is necessary. Just think for onesecond, and you can either say "yea I can probably surround for a couple rounds" or "nope I would be dead."
Yes! Which is precisely as long and complicated as chosing a spell with the proper save. And the rest of the wizard class is 'encumbrance' - sorting through a long list of spells hoping it has the magical solution to all ills.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Martial Class issues are one of the most common things I have heard that need fixing and as such it is the area I would have looked at first and fixed first, then do other stuff around it that need to be done.
So I am looking forward to see what fix's are presented and if they fix issues.
You can have an inkling without doing all the complicated math you suggest is necessary. Just think for onesecond, and you can either say "yea I can probably surround for a couple rounds" or "nope I would be dead."
Yes! Which is precisely as long and complicated as chosing a spell with the proper save. And the rest of the wizard class is 'encumbrance' - sorting through a long list of spells hoping it has the magical solution to all ills.
No it's not. Spells are much longer, much more complicated, and you have much more options with them than simply move and hit. In fact, the spell you should use changes with the circumstance you are in, whereas martials don't have the choice to attack in a billion different ways, and they usually end up just spamming the same attack action over and over again. Spellcasters are much more complex to make and play in any pseudo optimal way than a typical martial is.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
You can always give your martial the Telekinetic feat - drag your casters out of melee range of the enemy, so that they don't provoke OAs on their own turn - try pushing enemy into the moonbeam for immediate damage. Both as bonus actions alongside your own tactical movement and choice of either hitting or Dodging.
At the end of the day the fighters classes should all have a degree of complexity if you want simple battle master without using it's manuvers really isn't that much less powerful than a champion, but because of the design champion is hyper boring because they want it to be basic, battle master should be in my eyes the ground floor fighter, seriously adding some manuvers is not difficult for people to grasp the concept of and I don't know why people pretend it's to much for new players to manage
Than take the sidekick class of 'warrior' and print it in the phb as the starter class if this game needs one (I personally do not think this class is needed, if you want to teach someone D&D use the pregens and do the starter box one shot, don't lock them into a campaign of a character with no options or decisions)
You can always give your martial the Telekinetic feat - drag your casters out of melee range of the enemy, so that they don't provoke OAs on their own turn - try pushing enemy into the moonbeam for immediate damage. Both as bonus actions alongside your own tactical movement and choice of either hitting or Dodging.
Except for the fact that that's not thematic at all. How is an invisible mage hand a martial ability which fits for the character? The teleknietic shove could be a meta thing where your mere presence controls the battlefield, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Whether they beef up martials, or tone down casters, the key is that there needs to be a category of actions or abilities that success in the game greatly benefits from that are only accessible by higher level martial characters. That could be high AC, could be large HP pools (3-4x caster HP), could be a rebalance of the monster manual to make a lot of enemies immune or resistant to magic but not weapons... Whatever it is, it needs to be as much of an advantage as being able to cast things like Wish, Polymorph, Charm, etc...
I laughed a lot reading through the caster vs martial debates on who is more complex. They are pretty much equal at the end of all the fun calculations people want to impose on them, meaning to be GOOD at either, it's a fair bit of thinking and strategizing. Saying choosing which position to be in is more challenging than which spell to use is inane, really. It's choices to make and usually casters have more options to pick from, which might slow the pace a bit, but doesn't increase or decrease the difficulty. The whole argument is bonkers.
On to simplifying classes or adding complexity, I feel adding options for complexity would be better. It's already been pointed out a caster CAN dumb down their game and rip off damage spells every fight, and get by in fights using only a small handful of spells. Similarly a martial can just swing away every round and both end up being fairly useful most of the time and doing their part. These same players can more carefully choose spells, or actions to do MORE than just knock HP from enemies, making fights a bit less hectic, or making fights much easier. HAVING a lot of options doesn't mean you need to use them all. Players looking for a simple game can just stick to the basics of their classes and those who want more depth and complexity can burn their abilities and use special skills and spells. Options, IMO are better.
I'd like to see martials get something "signature" at levels where they gain a martial ability. Choose one of 3 options maybe, meaning that by level 20 you can have 2 Hunter Rangers in your group who operate VERY differently and can do vastly different things. Some subclasses offer things like this (Totem Barb is one, Hunter Ranger too) and to me, these are what really flavor YOUR character. Having selectable options for the martials at select levels, each of which would be like a "thing" they can do in combat, would help flavor them better and could be used, at higher levels, to help their damage or survivability increase, to catch up to the blasters.
For reference, I play a Totem Barbarian in a campaign our group is in and on nights I am tired or worn out, I just wade into the thick and swing. If I am more into it and want some variety, I target specific enemies, have grappled someone to lock them down and made sure I clearly stated I was being Reckless to try and draw attacks on the "wild and undisciplined" axe-swinger. Options are nice.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
One issue I have often seen is movement problems, those include flying, teleport and auto push/pull. Where it can be fun for PC's to auto push enemies off bridges or pull enemies into traps and or magical glyphs it is not fun when it happens to your PC, especially if it is an instant death issue.
Don't really like the way the OP is phrased, because imo ideally there should be a sliding scale of options for most everyone. Basic isn't inherently bad, but neither are more involved mechanics. The problem is when players feel tied to certain options independent of what they actually want to play. It's why the "just play a caster if you want a more complicated character" argument I saw on the first page is a bad one, because it's not very helpful if someone wants to play a certain type of martial or spellcaster, but has problems with the baseline level of 'stuff' the class has to juggle.
Right now, if someone wants to simplify their caster experience, they sometimes feel punished for it, and if they want a more complicated martial, their options are extremely limited. That's not great and generally just ends up frustrating players, idk why people act like that's somehow desireable.
The ideal, imo, is to increase modularity but do so in a way that's not too intrusive, so players can freely dip into more or less complicated spaces as they explore what they're looking for in a character. So far, the UA and playtest has been kind of promising in that regard but we'll see how it shakes out.
You can have an inkling without doing all the complicated math you suggest is necessary. Just think for onesecond, and you can either say "yea I can probably surround for a couple rounds" or "nope I would be dead."
Yes! Which is precisely as long and complicated as chosing a spell with the proper save. And the rest of the wizard class is 'encumbrance' - sorting through a long list of spells hoping it has the magical solution to all ills.
Casters definitely have a higher complexity floor. While martials can be made fairly complicated, as can casters, its difficult to have a basic caster in the same way as you can a caster. I'n not saying that new players can play a caster. Simply that, even at their most simple, they could be too complicated for some players.
Let's look for example at character creation. For fighter, the only level one choice you need make is fighting style, which isn't even that much a choice given that its basically determined by what weapons you want to use (eg. you want to play sword and shield? Here's dueling. You want to be an archer? Here's archery). Fighters basically need either strength or dexterity depending on the weapon, and constitution, so there's not a whole not of deep choices within what stats to assign.
For a caster on the other hand you're picking 2-4 cantrips, 2-3 1st level spells, and often a subclass. For many classes, these decisions can't easily be changed. There's a lot to consider when making the decision for the spell to pick, compared to picking a fighting style. For example, you probably want to balance utility and combat spells. You probably want some area spells vs single target, but that varies. There's also away more total options. In addition, even low level spells can cite more complicated mechanics such as obscuring, conditions, and concentration, meaning you can't wait until they come up in game to learn them: You need knowledge of them to even pick spells. Then of course casters have a lot more abilities scores to balance. You're going to want a high spellcasting ability, but also they usually lack good hit die so constitution is important. Many casters don't have access to much armor, so dexterity is also going to be incredibly important. Furthermore, you need to calculated but a spell save DC, a spellcasting ability modifier, and a spell attack modifier in addition to everything else.
Then looks at resource management. At level one, a fighter has one ability that basically just heals them so should be used whenever they're low hp. This only has a single use so you don't need to keep track of uses. Casters on the other hand have two spell slots between their many spells which are they're main tool, so they must balance when to use these much more. If you use mage armor at the beginning of the day so you don't die for example, then you're only left with one spell sot left. If you use your spell slots of utility out of combat then get into an encounter, you could be left defenseless. All considerations.
So even if casters have just as complicated a decision during combat, which I would disagree with, its still much more complicated in other aspects. For example, more in depth knowledge of the rules is required even for character creation due to the need to understand spells and abilities. This is all not to say that new players can't play casters, but to say that for many, they don't to tackle such a task, especially in their first experience playing the game.
The complication ceiling would be another discussion. But I think it is pretty simple to say that casters have a higher complication floor, especially at low levels when materials don't really have anything to keep track of.
Casters definitely have a higher complexity floor.
And I simply do not agree with you.
What you're describing is 'more work'. Not 'greater complexity'. Also, you say casters when you mean casters, but also when you really mean martials.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Casters definitely have a higher complexity floor.
And I simply do not agree with you.
What you're describing is 'more work'. Not 'greater complexity'.
No, HomebrewMindFlayer is describing greater complexity, which also gives the player more work as a side effect.
Reading all the complex rules for spellcasting is work, but understanding and being able to properly use the system is complexity. Martials don't have to do this.
Reading each spell is more work, being able to grasp how all those spells work and interact with other mechanics in the game is complexity. Martials don't have to do this.
Picking all your spells to have prepared and known is work, understanding which spell us better and more useful is complexity. Martials don't have to do this.
Being able to know which spell to use every time your turn comes up is just flat-out complexity. Martials don't have nearly as many ways to attack, so they usually just end up being forced to spam basic bonk
And while martials may have a decent amount of non-spellcasting c;ass features, spellcasters have other features too. So they still have to deal with a decent amount of that complexity that martials do.
In other words, spellcasters floor and ceiling for complexity are both higher than the average martials. Just because you can't see why something would seem complicated to other people doesn't mean it cannot be complicated for them. Throughout your posts, you keep repeating that you don't personally find casters to be complex. There is nothing wrong with believing that, but you likely have years of experience playing the game, which many new players who want to play casters do not.
"Barbarians are secretly really complicated" seems like such a weird hill to to die on.
Also if having more things to decide between and moving parts to manage isn't complexity, then what is it? It almost feels like Acromos has an entirely different definition of the word than other people in this thread.
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Well - that's like I said: Maybe go for a Wis save rather than a Tou if the enemy is an ogre. But that's so far from rocket science as to hurt the brain. And standing at range pondering where to place your wall of force is also below the threshold to challenge the mental acuity of the average squirrel.
Whereas playing a barbarian actually requires more math than you'd think. I run into four enemies, but expect one to fall because that's what I do. The remaining three will attack, but one will miss. Their damage (they are still ogres) is unpleasant but not catastrophic. Due to Rage I divide by 2. Then comes the tactical layer: I'm doing this in part to kill ogres, but primarily so the ogres will attack me, not the squishy caster fiddling with walls of force, so where do I need to be this round, and next round, to either achieve that, or punish the ogres if they decide to ignore me.
Like I said: I just don't see it.
And I feel you're really overstation how hard it is to play a caster. Really! What you describe is that it's time consuming - which is not complex, but just boring - and ressource management is just as important to the barbarian. You may realise that neither Rage nor HP are in infinite supply. Also, the strategic positioning of the barbarian is what allows the caster to position safely anywhere on the map.
And all players know how much damage monsters deal. Just .. come on.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Grapple is a far cry from Hold Person. All it does is reduce movement to 0, which is the least useful part of HP. It can still attack - and the grappler is always right there as a target by necessity - and has no penalties to do so nor is it any more vulnerable. And while there's no save, a contested check is basically the same thing.
First of all, Hold Person doesn't even work on ogres because they are Giants, not Humanoids. So yeah, casting is pretty easy when you don't actually read the spells or remember the rules around them.
Secondly, I have played several barbarians and never "calculated my expected incoming damage." You Rage and move to a spot where 1) you can hit and 2) you are hopefully not completely overwhelmed by enemies and then just see what happens. Not to downplay the importance of tactical positioning, but you're overstating it here and casters often have to think about positioning as well, factoring in line of sight and the ranges of all of their different spells.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I fairly confident you understand the example, but you're right, Hold Person doesn't work on giants. I looked up ogre, however, on some random source, and it was listed as 'large humanoid'. I don't remember where, but I shrugged my shoulders and went with this example, because I was away from books at work, and who cares anyhow, eh?
So you're bad at playing barbarian - or melee generally - no shame in that. But if you lack the foresight to calculate how long you can last in melee as the tank of the group, maybe you should just stick with something simple, like ... a wizard? =)
Truly - it is vital, when you run in the face of enemies, to have some inkling of how long you can stay there without being reduced to a bothersome stain on the carpets.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You can have an inkling without doing all the complicated math you suggest is necessary. Just think for one second, and you can either say "yea I can probably survive for a couple rounds" or "nope I would be dead."
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Wait... You are posting on DnDBeyond but went to some other random site to check on the rules for Ogre? This makes your credibility for the rest of the post questionable at best.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Yes! Which is precisely as long and complicated as chosing a spell with the proper save. And the rest of the wizard class is 'encumbrance' - sorting through a long list of spells hoping it has the magical solution to all ills.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Martial Class issues are one of the most common things I have heard that need fixing and as such it is the area I would have looked at first and fixed first, then do other stuff around it that need to be done.
So I am looking forward to see what fix's are presented and if they fix issues.
No it's not. Spells are much longer, much more complicated, and you have much more options with them than simply move and hit. In fact, the spell you should use changes with the circumstance you are in, whereas martials don't have the choice to attack in a billion different ways, and they usually end up just spamming the same attack action over and over again. Spellcasters are much more complex to make and play in any pseudo optimal way than a typical martial is.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.You can always give your martial the Telekinetic feat - drag your casters out of melee range of the enemy, so that they don't provoke OAs on their own turn - try pushing enemy into the moonbeam for immediate damage. Both as bonus actions alongside your own tactical movement and choice of either hitting or Dodging.
At the end of the day the fighters classes should all have a degree of complexity if you want simple battle master without using it's manuvers really isn't that much less powerful than a champion, but because of the design champion is hyper boring because they want it to be basic, battle master should be in my eyes the ground floor fighter, seriously adding some manuvers is not difficult for people to grasp the concept of and I don't know why people pretend it's to much for new players to manage
Than take the sidekick class of 'warrior' and print it in the phb as the starter class if this game needs one (I personally do not think this class is needed, if you want to teach someone D&D use the pregens and do the starter box one shot, don't lock them into a campaign of a character with no options or decisions)
Except for the fact that that's not thematic at all. How is an invisible mage hand a martial ability which fits for the character? The teleknietic shove could be a meta thing where your mere presence controls the battlefield, but that's a bit of a stretch.
Whether they beef up martials, or tone down casters, the key is that there needs to be a category of actions or abilities that success in the game greatly benefits from that are only accessible by higher level martial characters. That could be high AC, could be large HP pools (3-4x caster HP), could be a rebalance of the monster manual to make a lot of enemies immune or resistant to magic but not weapons... Whatever it is, it needs to be as much of an advantage as being able to cast things like Wish, Polymorph, Charm, etc...
Since people are discussing on this thread here about martials and simplicity/complexity I'd like to leave this here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/unearthed-arcana/157294-oned-ds-leveled-and-class-group-based-feats-are-a#c2
I think they might try to solve these issues with feats
I laughed a lot reading through the caster vs martial debates on who is more complex. They are pretty much equal at the end of all the fun calculations people want to impose on them, meaning to be GOOD at either, it's a fair bit of thinking and strategizing. Saying choosing which position to be in is more challenging than which spell to use is inane, really. It's choices to make and usually casters have more options to pick from, which might slow the pace a bit, but doesn't increase or decrease the difficulty. The whole argument is bonkers.
On to simplifying classes or adding complexity, I feel adding options for complexity would be better. It's already been pointed out a caster CAN dumb down their game and rip off damage spells every fight, and get by in fights using only a small handful of spells. Similarly a martial can just swing away every round and both end up being fairly useful most of the time and doing their part. These same players can more carefully choose spells, or actions to do MORE than just knock HP from enemies, making fights a bit less hectic, or making fights much easier. HAVING a lot of options doesn't mean you need to use them all. Players looking for a simple game can just stick to the basics of their classes and those who want more depth and complexity can burn their abilities and use special skills and spells. Options, IMO are better.
I'd like to see martials get something "signature" at levels where they gain a martial ability. Choose one of 3 options maybe, meaning that by level 20 you can have 2 Hunter Rangers in your group who operate VERY differently and can do vastly different things. Some subclasses offer things like this (Totem Barb is one, Hunter Ranger too) and to me, these are what really flavor YOUR character. Having selectable options for the martials at select levels, each of which would be like a "thing" they can do in combat, would help flavor them better and could be used, at higher levels, to help their damage or survivability increase, to catch up to the blasters.
For reference, I play a Totem Barbarian in a campaign our group is in and on nights I am tired or worn out, I just wade into the thick and swing. If I am more into it and want some variety, I target specific enemies, have grappled someone to lock them down and made sure I clearly stated I was being Reckless to try and draw attacks on the "wild and undisciplined" axe-swinger. Options are nice.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
One issue I have often seen is movement problems, those include flying, teleport and auto push/pull. Where it can be fun for PC's to auto push enemies off bridges or pull enemies into traps and or magical glyphs it is not fun when it happens to your PC, especially if it is an instant death issue.
Don't really like the way the OP is phrased, because imo ideally there should be a sliding scale of options for most everyone. Basic isn't inherently bad, but neither are more involved mechanics. The problem is when players feel tied to certain options independent of what they actually want to play. It's why the "just play a caster if you want a more complicated character" argument I saw on the first page is a bad one, because it's not very helpful if someone wants to play a certain type of martial or spellcaster, but has problems with the baseline level of 'stuff' the class has to juggle.
Right now, if someone wants to simplify their caster experience, they sometimes feel punished for it, and if they want a more complicated martial, their options are extremely limited. That's not great and generally just ends up frustrating players, idk why people act like that's somehow desireable.
The ideal, imo, is to increase modularity but do so in a way that's not too intrusive, so players can freely dip into more or less complicated spaces as they explore what they're looking for in a character. So far, the UA and playtest has been kind of promising in that regard but we'll see how it shakes out.
Casters definitely have a higher complexity floor. While martials can be made fairly complicated, as can casters, its difficult to have a basic caster in the same way as you can a caster. I'n not saying that new players can play a caster. Simply that, even at their most simple, they could be too complicated for some players.
Let's look for example at character creation. For fighter, the only level one choice you need make is fighting style, which isn't even that much a choice given that its basically determined by what weapons you want to use (eg. you want to play sword and shield? Here's dueling. You want to be an archer? Here's archery). Fighters basically need either strength or dexterity depending on the weapon, and constitution, so there's not a whole not of deep choices within what stats to assign.
For a caster on the other hand you're picking 2-4 cantrips, 2-3 1st level spells, and often a subclass. For many classes, these decisions can't easily be changed. There's a lot to consider when making the decision for the spell to pick, compared to picking a fighting style. For example, you probably want to balance utility and combat spells. You probably want some area spells vs single target, but that varies. There's also away more total options. In addition, even low level spells can cite more complicated mechanics such as obscuring, conditions, and concentration, meaning you can't wait until they come up in game to learn them: You need knowledge of them to even pick spells. Then of course casters have a lot more abilities scores to balance. You're going to want a high spellcasting ability, but also they usually lack good hit die so constitution is important. Many casters don't have access to much armor, so dexterity is also going to be incredibly important. Furthermore, you need to calculated but a spell save DC, a spellcasting ability modifier, and a spell attack modifier in addition to everything else.
Then looks at resource management. At level one, a fighter has one ability that basically just heals them so should be used whenever they're low hp. This only has a single use so you don't need to keep track of uses. Casters on the other hand have two spell slots between their many spells which are they're main tool, so they must balance when to use these much more. If you use mage armor at the beginning of the day so you don't die for example, then you're only left with one spell sot left. If you use your spell slots of utility out of combat then get into an encounter, you could be left defenseless. All considerations.
So even if casters have just as complicated a decision during combat, which I would disagree with, its still much more complicated in other aspects. For example, more in depth knowledge of the rules is required even for character creation due to the need to understand spells and abilities. This is all not to say that new players can't play casters, but to say that for many, they don't to tackle such a task, especially in their first experience playing the game.
The complication ceiling would be another discussion. But I think it is pretty simple to say that casters have a higher complication floor, especially at low levels when materials don't really have anything to keep track of.
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>Extended Signature<
And I simply do not agree with you.
What you're describing is 'more work'. Not 'greater complexity'. Also, you say casters when you mean casters, but also when you really mean martials.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
No, HomebrewMindFlayer is describing greater complexity, which also gives the player more work as a side effect.
In other words, spellcasters floor and ceiling for complexity are both higher than the average martials. Just because you can't see why something would seem complicated to other people doesn't mean it cannot be complicated for them. Throughout your posts, you keep repeating that you don't personally find casters to be complex. There is nothing wrong with believing that, but you likely have years of experience playing the game, which many new players who want to play casters do not.
One minor grammatical error does not change any of the points that HomebrewMindFlayer made.
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HERE."Barbarians are secretly really complicated" seems like such a weird hill to to die on.
Also if having more things to decide between and moving parts to manage isn't complexity, then what is it? It almost feels like Acromos has an entirely different definition of the word than other people in this thread.