I just read the article - should have long ago - and I find it funny that one of the main arguments is that 'if casters want armor, they can just multiclass'.
Well, yes, that's true - but if martials want spells, they can just multiclass. My fighter has all the good Reaction and Bonus Action spells. It doesn't add anything in particular to her offence, but she's extremely durable as a result. Fullplate, shield and Shield goes a very long way.
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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.
It depends. I think that the casters often lack certain endurance in combat. And that they are usually weaker at lower levels and more powerful at higher levels. But a lot of it is also situational and depends on DM. There are scenarios where each class can outshine the rest.
I just read the article - should have long ago - and I find it funny that one of the main arguments is that 'if casters want armor, they can just multiclass'.
Well, yes, that's true - but if martials want spells, they can just multiclass. My fighter has all the good Reaction and Bonus Action spells. It doesn't add anything in particular to her offence, but she's extremely durable as a result. Fullplate, shield and Shield goes a very long way.
The issue though is that casters have a lot more freedom and power with multiclassing. If a caster multiclasses into a caster class their spell slot progression won't go down. If a caster multiclasses into a martial class they get armor and a lot more hp if it's a fighter dip for Second Wind. Don't even get me started on how good a non-cleric caster multiclassing into cleric can be. If a martial multiclasses into a caster class they delay extra attack (yes, booming blade/green flame blade are alternatives but not as good) for a bit of 1st level spell utility.
True. But while spell slot progression may keep going, doesn't it also delay the learning of new high level spells? IE, if you multiclass cleric and druid, you might still get third level spell slots at druid 2 cleric 3, but you still need to get one of those classes to 5 before you get third level spells? So while you can upcast lower level spells to make use of those slots, you're still delaying whole new tiers of spells by multiclassing. Unless I'm mistake on how that works.
But yeah, extra attack is pretty fundamental to all martials but rogues and is a huge step forward that can be very painful to delay.
The thing is, multiclassing for armor is just a bonus option, for most casters. If Casters want armor, they can just cast Mage Armor and/or Shield, and/or purchase a Barrier Tattoo. Ta-dah. Also, there are casters who just get armor proficiency. You know, like Clerics, Hexblades, certain forms of Bard, half-casters, etc. Even Druids get Medium Armor proficiency, and while they can't wear metal armor, there's a certain set of Dragon Scale Male from Candlekeep Mysteries... Hell, you often don't even need Full Plate. Most anyone can just slap on some Half Plate, with a 14 in Dex. You'll be 1 AC shy, but at half the gold cost. Now if abso-smacking-lutely necessary, if all else fails... you can just go Tortle. 17 AC + whatever. Done.
Truth is, the only squishy mage is a dumb mage. "How to Stay Alive" should be written at the top of your spellbook, not as a footnote in the back somewhere.
True. But while spell slot progression may keep going, doesn't it also delay the learning of new high level spells? IE, if you multiclass cleric and druid, you might still get third level spell slots at druid 2 cleric 3, but you still need to get one of those classes to 5 before you get third level spells? So while you can upcast lower level spells to make use of those slots, you're still delaying whole new tiers of spells by multiclassing. Unless I'm mistake on how that works.
You're correct. It's also worth pointing out that upcasting, generally speaking, is significantly inferior to native spells of the same level. If you have a L2 slot, it's generally better to cast a L2 spell rather than upcasting a L1 spell to a L2 slot.
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True. But while spell slot progression may keep going, doesn't it also delay the learning of new high level spells? IE, if you multiclass cleric and druid, you might still get third level spell slots at druid 2 cleric 3, but you still need to get one of those classes to 5 before you get third level spells? So while you can upcast lower level spells to make use of those slots, you're still delaying whole new tiers of spells by multiclassing. Unless I'm mistake on how that works.
You're correct. It's also worth pointing out that upcasting, generally speaking, is significantly inferior to native spells of the same level. If you have a L2 slot, it's generally better to cast a L2 spell rather than upcasting a L1 spell to a L2 slot.
Yeah which is my point, while delaying extra attack is a big set back for non rogue martials, delaying spell level growth for a caster has always felt like a pretty big set back to me as well. Especially the jump from second to third level spells which to me feels like a much more significant jump in power than first to second level spells and happens to be at fifth level as well for full casters.
The issue though is that casters have a lot more freedom and power with multiclassing. If a caster multiclasses into a caster class their spell slot progression won't go down. If a caster multiclasses into a martial class they get armor and a lot more hp if it's a fighter dip for Second Wind. Don't even get me started on how good a non-cleric caster multiclassing into cleric can be. If a martial multiclasses into a caster class they delay extra attack (yes, booming blade/green flame blade are alternatives but not as good) for a bit of 1st level spell utility.
I never said it was a clear 1:1 trade. What I said was that the article doesn't mention - at all - that martials can multiclass too. Or, if it does, I missed it. That's been known to happen. I'm a fast reader, but not overly thorough.
And anyways, even so, I don't really agree that casters are stronger than martials - although I don't really care about, or have any real insight in, the game above like level 10, or a certain level of optimization. So there's that, a certain narrowness of scope =)
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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.
Lets say that we have 2 level 5 players, a wizard and a fighter. There is a group of 44 goblins in a circle formation they have to face. Assuming that due to movement things only 11 goblins can attack them in a turn (goblins can disengage as a BA) then the average fighter will be downed in 2 rounds (AC 18 HP 44 (CON 15)) and at most kill some 12-16 goblins while the wizard casts fireball and instantly wipes all the goblins out. This is a low level example of how a caster can demolish a fighter in the one of the few areas fighters are meant to be better in. There are many more examples of such things but this was the first off the top of my head.
Side note: Wizards can beat fighters out of combat by using utility cantrips to essentially "cheat" and skip rolls. No torch managing with the light cantrip, no diversion roll when you have prestidigitation, etc.
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Lets say that we have 2 level 5 players, a wizard and a fighter. There is a group of 44 goblins in a circle formation they have to face. Assuming that due to movement things only 11 goblins can attack them in a turn (goblins can disengage as a BA) then the average fighter will be downed in 2 rounds (AC 18 HP 44 (CON 15)) and at most kill some 12-16 goblins while the wizard casts fireball and instantly wipes all the goblins out. This is a low level example of how a caster can demolish a fighter in the one of the few areas fighters are meant to be better in. There are many more examples of such things but this was the first off the top of my head.
Side note: Wizards can beat fighters out of combat by using utility cantrips to essentially "cheat" and skip rolls. No torch managing with the light cantrip, no diversion roll when you have prestidigitation, etc.
Note you have placed the goblins in a formation convenient for fireball. Plus, are using an enemy that fireball will likely kill all or most of.
Now if they are in disbursed formation, and thus not so vulnerable to AE's, the situation changes rapidly. It is like suggesting that modern armies only need artillery. It is disproved by history and basic concepts of tactics.
Additionally:
1. If there is a PC engaged with those goblins, the Wizard is either going to cripple them or be crippled themselves as they can't use their main spells.
2. The Wizard can only do this twice a day, and then can't use their highest level slots for any other purpose. A Fighter can keep going all day long, as long as they're not KO'd.
The other point is that the Fighter isn't about killing lots of goblins. They're about taking damage as well so other, more vulnerable characters in the party (like, say, a Wizard) don't, and giving consistent damage throughout the day.
This is why I'm not a fan of theory crafting. People generally don't keep the scenarios realistic and instead use ones that heavily favour their position, even though they'd rarely or never happen.
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Casters are indisputably more powerful than martials, and have been since WotC took over. Older editions maintained balance by making magic-users' progression slower and giving them fewer hitpoints, making them sort of "glass cannons." Spell acquisition was also slower, more difficult, and less certain.
Then along came WotC and they immediately began to blatantly favor the caster classes. They seem to have gotten this idea in their heads that every class should be as effective in combat as the Fighter, and so the power imbalance was born. IIRC, 5e's lead rules guy is on record as stating that his favorite class is indeed the Wizard, and I think the rules definitely show that favoritism.
To me, this is most painfully evident in the eighty or so pages of spells and magic options in the PHB, while the martial classes only get three or four pages of barely-differentiated weapons and armour. Why is it that the community seems perfectly fine with volumes of complex spell rules, but gets irritated at the notion of making mundane, non-magical combat more complex? Bring back weapon vs. armour type, etc.--do something to add more dimensions to melee combat; give me a reason to select a warhammer over a longsword. Why do people feel that that would be needlessly complex or would slow play while at the same time being totally okay with layers of metamagic effects?
Lets say that we have 2 level 5 players, a wizard and a fighter. There is a group of 44 goblins in a circle formation they have to face. Assuming that due to movement things only 11 goblins can attack them in a turn (goblins can disengage as a BA) then the average fighter will be downed in 2 rounds (AC 18 HP 44 (CON 15)) and at most kill some 12-16 goblins while the wizard casts fireball and instantly wipes all the goblins out. This is a low level example of how a caster can demolish a fighter in the one of the few areas fighters are meant to be better in. There are many more examples of such things but this was the first off the top of my head.
Goblins have intelligence 10 and aren't dumb: They can disengage (using Nimble Escape) to move away from the party members and let every goblin get an attack every turn. They can also use disengage to get past the Fighter and get to the Wizard, which would make it much harder for that character to function.
Monsters aren't always stationary, and they really shouldn't be. I will say though, the Fighter would also not be able to kill 12+ goblins in 2 rounds, even with Extra Attack and Action Surge.
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Casters are indisputably more powerful than martials, and have been since WotC took over. Older editions maintained balance by making magic-users' progression slower and giving them fewer hitpoints, making them sort of "glass cannons." Spell acquisition was also slower, more difficult, and less certain.
And casters were still gods once the game reached mid levels. The fact that the first four levels of wizard sucked in 2nd Edition did not balance the fact that after that point their power level went quadratic.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Lets say that we have 2 level 5 players, a wizard and a fighter. There is a group of 44 goblins in a circle formation they have to face. Assuming that due to movement things only 11 goblins can attack them in a turn (goblins can disengage as a BA) then the average fighter will be downed in 2 rounds (AC 18 HP 44 (CON 15)) and at most kill some 12-16 goblins while the wizard casts fireball and instantly wipes all the goblins out. This is a low level example of how a caster can demolish a fighter in the one of the few areas fighters are meant to be better in. There are many more examples of such things but this was the first off the top of my head.
Side note: Wizards can beat fighters out of combat by using utility cantrips to essentially "cheat" and skip rolls. No torch managing with the light cantrip, no diversion roll when you have prestidigitation, etc.
This setup is blatantly favoring the wizard: martials are not an never have been good at fighting large numbers of weak foes. And as has already been pointed out, the goblins are bunched up into the precise formation that makes them most vulnerable to fireball, a tactical decision that only makes sense if they're trying to give the wizard the win.
Martial characters are much better against single tough enemies.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Goblins have bows, so what happens is all 44 of them use nimble escape to attempt to hide, then shoot arrows (with advantage if hide succeeded), probably killing both of them turn 1.
Goblins have bows, so what happens is all 44 of them use nimble escape to attempt to hide, then shoot arrows (with advantage if hide succeeded), probably killing both of them turn 1.
The caster from earlier editions (when casters were supposedly weaker) laughs, having protection from normal missiles running
If 5e the caster can cast wind wall, but then the goblins just retreat because it's immobile.
Like I said before, combat is fine. The DM has complete control over the goblin horde, so they can run the goblins in a way that both the fighter and wizard have time to shine.
Where the gap really shows is after the battle. The fighter is limited to his abbreviated skill proficiences, most of which are lower by default because he needs to focus on STR and CON which power a total of 1 skill. The wizard meanwhile not only has better modifiers for a larger number of skills, but also has an entire secondary mechanic for interacting with the world - utility spells.
As people have noted in this thread, martials are fun in combat and plenty of people play them. As long as the game is fun, it's all good. But between combat is just not fun for martials, or at the very least martials need to work really hard to make the most of the meager mechanics they are given. And many spells exist that are directly superior to those mechanics as well.
Not a lot of love for 4e these days, but one thing they did right was to give everyone utility powers. Everyone could choose powers that worked outside of combat. And towards the end of its lifespan, martials even got a kind of equivalent to rituals - martial techniques or something - that allowed them to do non-combat things. Martials need this. As long as the game is fun, it's all good, but standing around while the spellcasters are doing all kinds of stuff before and after battle is not fun. At high levels you feel quite useless until you get a chance to roll initiative and it gets really easy to just mentally disengage during those lulls.
Not a lot of love for 4e these days, but one thing they did right was to give everyone utility powers.
Most utility powers were pretty meh. The factors that helped with that balance in 4e were
The skill challenge mechanic meant that a far wider range of skills was viable for a given challenge.
Ability score improvements in 4e were required to be split, and every class was at least somewhat MAD (usually one key stat, and one nice to have stat).
Out of combat abilities weren't that overwhelming for anyone, you were mostly just using your skills.
Of those, I think that point 3 is the sticking point -- people really like having spells that do interesting things outside of combat.
Very few people play a pure fighter anymore. Some are playing barbarians (most of them have supplemental magic), but most frontliners these days are paladins, clerics, bladesingers, or some other class that has spells as well as fighting abilities. Everyone recognizes that a plain vanilla non-magical fighter is weaker than the alternatives. As evidence, note that almost all the new fighter subclasses have magic type abilities. Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, Purple Dragon Knight, and Rune Knight all check this box. That leaves Champion and Cavalier (both weak, need a hug), Samurai (interesting, but still under-powered), Gunslinger (okay, if we can’t have magic, we can use modern technology). So at the end of the day, who is playing a plain non-magical fighter? Very few, I think.
Okay, what should be done? Feats are wonderful, I love them. But we can’t fix this with feats because (1) not everybody uses feats and (2) really good feats soon become “must haves” and so fighters must take them to the exclusion of other more interesting and flavorful feats. Fighters wind up with a “feat tax” and this is bad for the game. So we need to put the utility of these “must have feats” directly into the fighter classes. Really, this is NOT going to unbalance the game, the martial-spell caster power gap is just so huge! One of the arguments for holding fighters back is that they have consistent damage every round, so they don’t need “nova damage” and nova damage should be left to spells, which are limited in use…except that in actual practice, spells are NOT limited. Outside a dungeon, (where most modern play occurs) there are few encounters per day and plenty of rests to regain spells. Then we have (for just one example) Eldritch Blast, an unlimited use cantrip that, when paired with Agonizing Blast, outclasses most fighter attacks! A ZERO cost cantrip!
My suggestions? We need to bake some huge bonuses directly into the martial classes. I suggest that all martials be given a 1st level ability. I would call it reckless attack but then it would get confused with the barbarian ability, so we probably need another name. But anyway, call out for -5 to hit before making an attack and get +10 damage if it hits. Yes, basically part of Great Weapons Master and part of Sharpshooter except it applies to all melee, thrown, or ranged weapons. Fighters using non-heavy weapons and longbow archers will rejoice! Opening all weapons to this will do away with the “must have” feats. Seems OP for 1st level until you consider that a low level fighter is going to miss quite often with that -5. This ability is not going to work well for them until they gain some levels, so it is self scaling. Really, this is the level of boost needed to bring martials in line with spell casters!
The second thing I would do would be to simply do away with the Battle Master fighter archetype and simply give those abilities to all fighters exactly at the levels that the Battle Master gets them now. (I would leave the barbarian out of this). Before you dismiss these ideas as OP, please run the numbers and do some playtesting. I think that you will find that this just brings martials up to where they need to be. The wizard is still going to be the most powerful class, and I don’t think you will see people stop playing the spell casting classes because of this.
Then we still need to give martials something to do out of combat.
So at the end of the day, who is playing a plain non-magical fighter? Very few, I think.
Honestly, the main problem with battle master is that it doesn't scale significantly, maneuver dice are amazing at level 3, but going from 4d8 at level 3 to 6d12 at level 18 is quite underwhelming.
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I just read the article - should have long ago - and I find it funny that one of the main arguments is that 'if casters want armor, they can just multiclass'.
Well, yes, that's true - but if martials want spells, they can just multiclass. My fighter has all the good Reaction and Bonus Action spells. It doesn't add anything in particular to her offence, but she's extremely durable as a result. Fullplate, shield and Shield goes a very long way.
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.
It depends. I think that the casters often lack certain endurance in combat. And that they are usually weaker at lower levels and more powerful at higher levels. But a lot of it is also situational and depends on DM. There are scenarios where each class can outshine the rest.
The issue though is that casters have a lot more freedom and power with multiclassing. If a caster multiclasses into a caster class their spell slot progression won't go down. If a caster multiclasses into a martial class they get armor and a lot more hp if it's a fighter dip for Second Wind. Don't even get me started on how good a non-cleric caster multiclassing into cleric can be. If a martial multiclasses into a caster class they delay extra attack (yes, booming blade/green flame blade are alternatives but not as good) for a bit of 1st level spell utility.
True. But while spell slot progression may keep going, doesn't it also delay the learning of new high level spells? IE, if you multiclass cleric and druid, you might still get third level spell slots at druid 2 cleric 3, but you still need to get one of those classes to 5 before you get third level spells? So while you can upcast lower level spells to make use of those slots, you're still delaying whole new tiers of spells by multiclassing. Unless I'm mistake on how that works.
But yeah, extra attack is pretty fundamental to all martials but rogues and is a huge step forward that can be very painful to delay.
The thing is, multiclassing for armor is just a bonus option, for most casters.
If Casters want armor, they can just cast Mage Armor and/or Shield, and/or purchase a Barrier Tattoo. Ta-dah.
Also, there are casters who just get armor proficiency. You know, like Clerics, Hexblades, certain forms of Bard, half-casters, etc.
Even Druids get Medium Armor proficiency, and while they can't wear metal armor, there's a certain set of Dragon Scale Male from Candlekeep Mysteries...
Hell, you often don't even need Full Plate. Most anyone can just slap on some Half Plate, with a 14 in Dex. You'll be 1 AC shy, but at half the gold cost.
Now if abso-smacking-lutely necessary, if all else fails... you can just go Tortle. 17 AC + whatever. Done.
Truth is, the only squishy mage is a dumb mage. "How to Stay Alive" should be written at the top of your spellbook, not as a footnote in the back somewhere.
You're correct. It's also worth pointing out that upcasting, generally speaking, is significantly inferior to native spells of the same level. If you have a L2 slot, it's generally better to cast a L2 spell rather than upcasting a L1 spell to a L2 slot.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Yeah which is my point, while delaying extra attack is a big set back for non rogue martials, delaying spell level growth for a caster has always felt like a pretty big set back to me as well. Especially the jump from second to third level spells which to me feels like a much more significant jump in power than first to second level spells and happens to be at fifth level as well for full casters.
I never said it was a clear 1:1 trade. What I said was that the article doesn't mention - at all - that martials can multiclass too. Or, if it does, I missed it. That's been known to happen. I'm a fast reader, but not overly thorough.
And anyways, even so, I don't really agree that casters are stronger than martials - although I don't really care about, or have any real insight in, the game above like level 10, or a certain level of optimization. So there's that, a certain narrowness of scope =)
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.
Lets say that we have 2 level 5 players, a wizard and a fighter. There is a group of 44 goblins in a circle formation they have to face. Assuming that due to movement things only 11 goblins can attack them in a turn (goblins can disengage as a BA) then the average fighter will be downed in 2 rounds (AC 18 HP 44 (CON 15)) and at most kill some 12-16 goblins while the wizard casts fireball and instantly wipes all the goblins out. This is a low level example of how a caster can demolish a fighter in the one of the few areas fighters are meant to be better in. There are many more examples of such things but this was the first off the top of my head.
Side note: Wizards can beat fighters out of combat by using utility cantrips to essentially "cheat" and skip rolls. No torch managing with the light cantrip, no diversion roll when you have prestidigitation, etc.
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Drummer Generated Title
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Additionally:
1. If there is a PC engaged with those goblins, the Wizard is either going to cripple them or be crippled themselves as they can't use their main spells.
2. The Wizard can only do this twice a day, and then can't use their highest level slots for any other purpose. A Fighter can keep going all day long, as long as they're not KO'd.
The other point is that the Fighter isn't about killing lots of goblins. They're about taking damage as well so other, more vulnerable characters in the party (like, say, a Wizard) don't, and giving consistent damage throughout the day.
This is why I'm not a fan of theory crafting. People generally don't keep the scenarios realistic and instead use ones that heavily favour their position, even though they'd rarely or never happen.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Casters are indisputably more powerful than martials, and have been since WotC took over. Older editions maintained balance by making magic-users' progression slower and giving them fewer hitpoints, making them sort of "glass cannons." Spell acquisition was also slower, more difficult, and less certain.
Then along came WotC and they immediately began to blatantly favor the caster classes. They seem to have gotten this idea in their heads that every class should be as effective in combat as the Fighter, and so the power imbalance was born. IIRC, 5e's lead rules guy is on record as stating that his favorite class is indeed the Wizard, and I think the rules definitely show that favoritism.
To me, this is most painfully evident in the eighty or so pages of spells and magic options in the PHB, while the martial classes only get three or four pages of barely-differentiated weapons and armour. Why is it that the community seems perfectly fine with volumes of complex spell rules, but gets irritated at the notion of making mundane, non-magical combat more complex? Bring back weapon vs. armour type, etc.--do something to add more dimensions to melee combat; give me a reason to select a warhammer over a longsword. Why do people feel that that would be needlessly complex or would slow play while at the same time being totally okay with layers of metamagic effects?
Goblins have intelligence 10 and aren't dumb: They can disengage (using Nimble Escape) to move away from the party members and let every goblin get an attack every turn. They can also use disengage to get past the Fighter and get to the Wizard, which would make it much harder for that character to function.
Monsters aren't always stationary, and they really shouldn't be. I will say though, the Fighter would also not be able to kill 12+ goblins in 2 rounds, even with Extra Attack and Action Surge.
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.And casters were still gods once the game reached mid levels. The fact that the first four levels of wizard sucked in 2nd Edition did not balance the fact that after that point their power level went quadratic.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This setup is blatantly favoring the wizard: martials are not an never have been good at fighting large numbers of weak foes. And as has already been pointed out, the goblins are bunched up into the precise formation that makes them most vulnerable to fireball, a tactical decision that only makes sense if they're trying to give the wizard the win.
Martial characters are much better against single tough enemies.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Goblins have bows, so what happens is all 44 of them use nimble escape to attempt to hide, then shoot arrows (with advantage if hide succeeded), probably killing both of them turn 1.
If 5e the caster can cast wind wall, but then the goblins just retreat because it's immobile.
Like I said before, combat is fine. The DM has complete control over the goblin horde, so they can run the goblins in a way that both the fighter and wizard have time to shine.
Where the gap really shows is after the battle. The fighter is limited to his abbreviated skill proficiences, most of which are lower by default because he needs to focus on STR and CON which power a total of 1 skill. The wizard meanwhile not only has better modifiers for a larger number of skills, but also has an entire secondary mechanic for interacting with the world - utility spells.
As people have noted in this thread, martials are fun in combat and plenty of people play them. As long as the game is fun, it's all good. But between combat is just not fun for martials, or at the very least martials need to work really hard to make the most of the meager mechanics they are given. And many spells exist that are directly superior to those mechanics as well.
Not a lot of love for 4e these days, but one thing they did right was to give everyone utility powers. Everyone could choose powers that worked outside of combat. And towards the end of its lifespan, martials even got a kind of equivalent to rituals - martial techniques or something - that allowed them to do non-combat things. Martials need this. As long as the game is fun, it's all good, but standing around while the spellcasters are doing all kinds of stuff before and after battle is not fun. At high levels you feel quite useless until you get a chance to roll initiative and it gets really easy to just mentally disengage during those lulls.
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
Most utility powers were pretty meh. The factors that helped with that balance in 4e were
Of those, I think that point 3 is the sticking point -- people really like having spells that do interesting things outside of combat.
Very few people play a pure fighter anymore. Some are playing barbarians (most of them have supplemental magic), but most frontliners these days are paladins, clerics, bladesingers, or some other class that has spells as well as fighting abilities. Everyone recognizes that a plain vanilla non-magical fighter is weaker than the alternatives. As evidence, note that almost all the new fighter subclasses have magic type abilities. Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, Purple Dragon Knight, and Rune Knight all check this box. That leaves Champion and Cavalier (both weak, need a hug), Samurai (interesting, but still under-powered), Gunslinger (okay, if we can’t have magic, we can use modern technology). So at the end of the day, who is playing a plain non-magical fighter? Very few, I think.
Okay, what should be done? Feats are wonderful, I love them. But we can’t fix this with feats because (1) not everybody uses feats and (2) really good feats soon become “must haves” and so fighters must take them to the exclusion of other more interesting and flavorful feats. Fighters wind up with a “feat tax” and this is bad for the game. So we need to put the utility of these “must have feats” directly into the fighter classes. Really, this is NOT going to unbalance the game, the martial-spell caster power gap is just so huge! One of the arguments for holding fighters back is that they have consistent damage every round, so they don’t need “nova damage” and nova damage should be left to spells, which are limited in use…except that in actual practice, spells are NOT limited. Outside a dungeon, (where most modern play occurs) there are few encounters per day and plenty of rests to regain spells. Then we have (for just one example) Eldritch Blast, an unlimited use cantrip that, when paired with Agonizing Blast, outclasses most fighter attacks! A ZERO cost cantrip!
My suggestions? We need to bake some huge bonuses directly into the martial classes. I suggest that all martials be given a 1st level ability. I would call it reckless attack but then it would get confused with the barbarian ability, so we probably need another name. But anyway, call out for -5 to hit before making an attack and get +10 damage if it hits. Yes, basically part of Great Weapons Master and part of Sharpshooter except it applies to all melee, thrown, or ranged weapons. Fighters using non-heavy weapons and longbow archers will rejoice! Opening all weapons to this will do away with the “must have” feats. Seems OP for 1st level until you consider that a low level fighter is going to miss quite often with that -5. This ability is not going to work well for them until they gain some levels, so it is self scaling. Really, this is the level of boost needed to bring martials in line with spell casters!
The second thing I would do would be to simply do away with the Battle Master fighter archetype and simply give those abilities to all fighters exactly at the levels that the Battle Master gets them now. (I would leave the barbarian out of this). Before you dismiss these ideas as OP, please run the numbers and do some playtesting. I think that you will find that this just brings martials up to where they need to be. The wizard is still going to be the most powerful class, and I don’t think you will see people stop playing the spell casting classes because of this.
Then we still need to give martials something to do out of combat.
Thoughts?
Nathair Sgiathach is my co-pilot
Honestly, the main problem with battle master is that it doesn't scale significantly, maneuver dice are amazing at level 3, but going from 4d8 at level 3 to 6d12 at level 18 is quite underwhelming.