In my group the Battlemaster with Great Weapon Fighter and Polearm Master is easily the superstar. Sure some Fireballs or Black Tentacles have made for some hilariously short combats but dang.
This is called Anecdotal evidence, as far as Battlemaster goes, you can do more damage with sharpshooter, crossbow expert and a light crossbow. Battlemaster is known as the best fighter sub-class for a reason but despite this, in the first 5E campaign I played as a not optimized Paladin and was starting too out-damage that build around level 8, this is also Anecdotal of course. A big part of this is about how your DM is tossing out encounters, one thing about Battlemaster is generally they are capable of burning all of their superiority die in a single turn, which outputs a significantly heavy amount of damage but then leaves them with no resources. So if your DM designs encounters to take that into consideration and to last around 4 rounds, that battlemaster will mostly seem lame from rounds 2-4.
Now if you compare this to a sorcerer who from level 5 can toss out a quickened fireball as a bonus action and then twin spell firebolt... sorcerer can still out damage this polearm battle master, your PAM Battlemaster is likely averaging around 52.8 DPR at level 5 (GWF may increase this a bit...) . Now the sorcerer with a fireball and firebolt against a single target is only doing around 30.8 damage, but the moment this jumps too two targets, this becomes around 61.4DPR and if there are three targets, 84.5 DPR. Now the sorcerer doesn't need to twin firebolt, they could opt for two rounds of quickened fireball each dealing an average of 53.9 DPR, meanwhile in this second round your battlemaster is out of resources and can't get them back until a short rest.
Other parts of encounter design can make this very anecdotal too. If you toss this battle master against a bunch of creatures with 10 HP, the battlemaster could potentially kill up to 5 targets, the sorcerer likely kills all in the AoE of fireball, and so there isn't much visible difference. But if you increase this too 20HP, the chances your battlemaster oneshots any of them drops significantly, meanwhile fireball is still oneshotting the vast majority of them.
What is not Ancedotal is that battlemaster is an early star, it burns fast but it's damage output really doesn't increase as significantly. At level 11 you're making 3+1 attacks with this PAM battlemaster, 6+1 with action surge, meanwhile battlemaster only has 5 superiority die at this level. The average DPR is likely around 77.9, Sorcerer at level 11 can twin spell Disintegrate for 40+10d6 damage for ~48.8 DPR to each target (for ~97.5 total). Or instead they could quicken Disintegrate and then cast firebolt on a single target to get 60.3 two rounds in a row meanwhile the battlemaster drops to 27.3 DPR for the rest of combat. Over a 2 round combat the sorcerer would average around 120.6 DPR while the battlemaster averages 105.2, and this is for single target, against multiple target AoEs win casters the damage game by even more. Additionally the Sorcerer would switch to quickened immolate on the 3rd round while your battlemaster is still stuck around 27.3 DPR...
Basically early on the Caster Martial balance is a lot less noticeable but by tier 3 casters are easy winning as they obliterate their targets from over 100 foot away while the PAM battlemaster is rushing up to melee range to do less damage. This also ignores various control spells, one cast of the hoover spell and the PAM battlemaster is basically useless, meanwhile hoover on a sorcerer can still cast ALL of their spells. Also sorcerer can just not walk into damaging or difficult terrains, Druid on the other hand can make those damaging and difficult terrains.
This is another point, if you look at just pure DPR then you also miss a significant amount of the caster/martial imbalance, A 6th level circle of the moon druid can transformed into a Giant Constrictor Snake, this form is notoriously overpowered as it can trivialize entire encounters, including some dragons, due to how insane the restrained condition can be. a 1st level cleric can cast bless, the DPR increase bless gives to the whole group from a single cast is crazy. Your 7th level wizard might cast the spell greater invisibility, now granting advantage to the target and disadvantage to most hostile creatures attacking that target.
This is a long ass Tangent, but somebody who doesn't understand the martial/caster imbalance is looking at things from a VERY VERY limited point of view.
a 1st level cleric can cast bless, the DPR increase bless gives to the whole group from a single cast is crazy.
Where does that increase in DPR come from though? (Hint: It doesn't come from casting bless on another caster that makes 1 attack roll for 4.5-5.5 damage on a hit. - FYI casting Bless on 3 allies casting Firebolt = a whopping increase of 3 DPR). Same goes for who is benefitting from that Giant Constrictor snake (that FYI has an AC of 12 and only 60 hp so is lucky to 2 rounds against a dragon), or that Greater Invisibility. You can't say Casters >>> Martials if your reason Casters are better is that they can increase the DPR of Martials.
Sorcerer at level 11 can twin spell Disintegrate for 40+10d6 damage for ~48.8 DPR to each target (for ~97.5 total)
So you're a level 11 party facing 1-2 boss monsters and those boss monsters don't have Legendary Resistance??? That sorcerer with Disintegrate does a big fat 0 damage against a monster with Legendary Resistance. Why don't you just cast Polymorph and waltz past?
Over a 2 round combat the sorcerer would average around 120.6 DPR while the battlemaster averages 105.2, and this is for single target, against multiple target AoEs win casters the damage game by even more.
Um... why in all living hells would a Sorcerer use 8 sorcery points and two of their top level spells in a combat that only lasts 2 rounds???? Why aren't they saving it for the boss combat of the day? Or are you suggesting it is common for the climax of an adventuring day to be a combat that only lasts 2 rounds?
a 1st level cleric can cast bless, the DPR increase bless gives to the whole group from a single cast is crazy.
Where does that increase in DPR come from though? (Hint: It doesn't come from casting bless on another caster that makes 1 attack roll for 4.5-5.5 damage on a hit. - FYI casting Bless on 3 allies casting Firebolt = a whopping increase of 3 DPR). Same goes for who is benefitting from that Giant Constrictor snake (that FYI has an AC of 12 and only 60 hp so is lucky to 2 rounds against a dragon), or that Greater Invisibility. You can't say Casters >>> Martials if your reason Casters are better is that they can increase the DPR of Martials.
a 1 DPR increase over a 5.5 DPR attack would be an increase, of 18% change... 18%! off of a single cast of bless on a single target, but even then you're numbers here just aren't accurate. If you assume an average attack roll hits 65% chance of the time, bless increases this by around 12.5% on average. That is a average 19.2% increase in DPR.
Now let's consider the idea that in the first round you cast bless, hit yourself, a warlock and a fighter. the 2nd round you cast guiding bolt, that is 14 average damage on a hit, so an average 9.1 DPR at 65% or with bless, an average DPR of 10.85 with bless. The warlock uses hex + eldritch blast, ~5.85 at 65% or ~6.975 at 77.5% and the fighter with a greatsword does ~6.5 at 65% or ~7.75 at 77.5%.
Of course if you had three casters you could be doing it too three casters and you'd get enough damage increase that in a 3+ round combat that Bless adds a significant amount of damage, easily more than a single guilding bolt.
Sorcerer at level 11 can twin spell Disintegrate for 40+10d6 damage for ~48.8 DPR to each target (for ~97.5 total)
So you're a level 11 party facing 1-2 boss monsters and those boss monsters don't have Legendary Resistance??? That sorcerer with Disintegrate does a big fat 0 damage against a monster with Legendary Resistance. Why don't you just cast Polymorph and waltz past?
At level 11, how many CR11 creatures even have legendary resistances to be that worried about it... maybe by CR15 but CR11 seems a bit low to be worrying about that.
Over a 2 round combat the sorcerer would average around 120.6 DPR while the battlemaster averages 105.2, and this is for single target, against multiple target AoEs win casters the damage game by even more.
Um... why in all living hells would a Sorcerer use 8 sorcery points and two of their top level spells in a combat that only lasts 2 rounds???? Why aren't they saving it for the boss combat of the day? Or are you suggesting it is common for the climax of an adventuring day to be a combat that only lasts 2 rounds?
Depends on how the encounter is set-up, if it's an ambush in an open field then it's quiet feasible, if it's an illithid, they tend to have minions who join in the boss fight as do other creatures. The fact is that a Sorcerer can still do that, the further point is sorcerer has a lot more choices in how to achieve a higher DPR than a Battlemaster of the same level does.
In otherwords : Martials kill bosses, Casters kill minions... The notable exceptions being Monk and Ranger who are just kind of bad at killing stuff.
First off, those look like Critical Role characters, I don't really think that is a good basis, Critical Role needs all characters to get a good amount of screen time and what not. Secondarily you still have a sorcerer at 1st place on both lists..... 3rd off casters can simply do more than just Pure DPS, which is the whole point of saying it is more than just DPR.
4th, kills actually isn't a good representation of DPR, things like initiative can come in as characters that go first might do more damage and leaving more creatures open to being killed in following turns by the party. Example, Fireball doing ~21 damage, against 3 Ogres with 30HP, all three ogres survive with 9HP. Barbarian goes next who uses a Polearm, manages to hit each Ogre will attacking recklessly, doing ~12 damage to each. The sorcerer did more damage but Barbarian got more kills because the Sorcerer had a higher initiative.
Kills is more relevant than DPR to a characters' performance though, because if 5e damage means nothing until that damage kill something to stop it acting. A Fireball that does 100 DPR to 5 creatures but kills none of them has less effect that a fighter dealing 50 DPR to 1 creature and killing it.
Yup they are CR characters, b/c I know of no other so highly documented campaigns, if there are others feel free to add them. Pointing to one character on the list is no better than random anecdotes, the bulk of the boss kills across multiple campaigns are by martials, whereas the bulk of the total kills across multiple campaigns are by casters.
Sure casters can do other things besides killing, but generally the power of many of those things originates just as much (if not more so) from the martial than from the caster. E.g. Haste in isolation is a terrible spell most of the time, because a caster casting Haste of themselves is an utter waste, Haste is only a good spell b/c martial are good. If martials were a waste of space then Haste would also be a waste of space.
Bless is a fantastic spell because martials and warlocks (who are effectively martials with a wand) are good. If spells were always better than martials then Bless would be considered a bad spell b/c it does very little to benefit casting spells.
PS a party of level 11 characters vs a single CR 11 monster is a pathetically simple fight, you need at least CR 13 for a solo boss monster vs a party of level 11, and I'd be looking at CR 14-15 if they are coming into the fight with all their resources available.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Actually, this is a good time to be making business decisions if you are a competitor like Paizo. A bunch of people are looking for new systems so striking while the iron is still hot is probably a good idea.
Not to mention the amount of pressure this can put on WotC and Hasbro. If we look at the current OGL "draft," they are still being rather manipulative. Their restrictions on VTT's are also concerning. Honestly, keeping the pressure on WotC and Hasbro is still a pretty good move.
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
The reality is, small RPG publishers want to sell their product, and they don't care about the VTT fight. They care about the royalties fight, but Wizards already caved on that. If lots of players start jumping the publishers will follow, but they're unlikely to lead the way.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Actually, this is a good time to be making business decisions if you are a competitor like Paizo. A bunch of people are looking for new systems so striking while the iron is still hot is probably a good idea.
Not to mention the amount of pressure this can put on WotC and Hasbro. If we look at the current OGL "draft," they are still being rather manipulative. Their restrictions on VTT's are also concerning. Honestly, keeping the pressure on WotC and Hasbro is still a pretty good move.
I never said people and entities shouldn't make decisions. I said they shouldn't make them hastily.
Let's be frank: nobody is honestly a competitor with Hasbro and its subsidiaries. It dwarfs everyone else by comparison. Paizo still includes 1.0a in the back of its books as a cost saving measure. Profit margins are thin for basically everyone, and they're unionized so it might actually be worse there. I also think they're a bad example because they've already diversified. There are Pathfinder comics and novels, and they've even licensed the setting for Savage Worlds. The Kickstarter was a few years ago. And let's not forget that Paizo has been burnt by WotC before. This isn't uncharted territory for the company, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were anticipated.
Shifts, even in the short term, are going to raise costs. That'll either cut into profit margins or the prices will go up. Heck, both could happen. That creates a higher barrier of entry, and that may turn people off.
And call the company manipulative, if you want, but so what? You think the mass cancellations of DDB subscriptions wasn't also manipulative? You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits? And the new VTT policy shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention for the last 15-20 years. Fourth edition was supposed to ship with a VTT, but there were problems with the contracted developer. If it looks restrictive, it's supposed to be.
That said, policy can change. By all means, keep up that pressure. Fight for what you care about. But don't pretend they're the villain and you're the hero.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Actually, this is a good time to be making business decisions if you are a competitor like Paizo. A bunch of people are looking for new systems so striking while the iron is still hot is probably a good idea.
Not to mention the amount of pressure this can put on WotC and Hasbro. If we look at the current OGL "draft," they are still being rather manipulative. Their restrictions on VTT's are also concerning. Honestly, keeping the pressure on WotC and Hasbro is still a pretty good move.
I never said people and entities shouldn't make decisions. I said they shouldn't make them hastily.
Let's be frank: nobody is honestly a competitor with Hasbro and its subsidiaries. It dwarfs everyone else by comparison. Paizo still includes 1.0a in the back of its books as a cost saving measure. Profit margins are thin for basically everyone, and they're unionized so it might actually be worse there. I also think they're a bad example because they've already diversified. There are Pathfinder comics and novels, and they've even licensed the setting for Savage Worlds. The Kickstarter was a few years ago. And let's not forget that Paizo has been burnt by WotC before. This isn't uncharted territory for the company, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were anticipated.
Shifts, even in the short term, are going to raise costs. That'll either cut into profit margins or the prices will go up. Heck, both could happen. That creates a higher barrier of entry, and that may turn people off.
And call the company manipulative, if you want, but so what? You think the mass cancellations of DDB subscriptions wasn't also manipulative? You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits? And the new VTT policy shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention for the last 15-20 years. Fourth edition was supposed to ship with a VTT, but there were problems with the contracted developer. If it looks restrictive, it's supposed to be.
That said, policy can change. By all means, keep up that pressure. Fight for what you care about. But don't pretend they're the villain and you're the hero.
I am not going to call the mass cancellations manipularive. People are being very frank with why they are cancelling. WotC is trying to spin the story in their favor, massive difference.
Also, the OGL goes way beyond protecting the company from lawsuits, and the VTT policy is way overreaching like not allowing animations. The whole spew about an animated magic missile making it count more as a video game than a VTT is absurd.
Furthermore, doesn't matter how much bigger they are, if people are putting out products in the same market, they are a competitor.
You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits?
LOL This is the most ridiculous understatement of what OGL1.2 does that I've ever seen. I'd argue it's borderline shilling for WotC. OGL 1.2 makes it almost impossible for third party creators to successfully sue WotC over anything including blatant copyright infringement, and even if a creator does manage to obtain clear evidence that WotC deliberately copied their work (nearly impossible to do unless a WotC employee leaks e-mails or memos to you) they only can ask for monetary damages and that will only be what the creator can prove they lost in revenue due to WotC stealing their work. WotC will continue to be able to publish & sell that creators content and make a profit off of it and there is nothing a creator can do to stop them - even if WotC is found guilty of stealing that creator's work!
I do hope they keep 3rd party content and don’t take it away permanently I haven’t see much about OGL but I use 3rd party things a lot and it would suck if they no longer have it.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Actually, this is a good time to be making business decisions if you are a competitor like Paizo. A bunch of people are looking for new systems so striking while the iron is still hot is probably a good idea.
Not to mention the amount of pressure this can put on WotC and Hasbro. If we look at the current OGL "draft," they are still being rather manipulative. Their restrictions on VTT's are also concerning. Honestly, keeping the pressure on WotC and Hasbro is still a pretty good move.
I never said people and entities shouldn't make decisions. I said they shouldn't make them hastily.
Let's be frank: nobody is honestly a competitor with Hasbro and its subsidiaries. It dwarfs everyone else by comparison. Paizo still includes 1.0a in the back of its books as a cost saving measure. Profit margins are thin for basically everyone, and they're unionized so it might actually be worse there. I also think they're a bad example because they've already diversified. There are Pathfinder comics and novels, and they've even licensed the setting for Savage Worlds. The Kickstarter was a few years ago. And let's not forget that Paizo has been burnt by WotC before. This isn't uncharted territory for the company, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were anticipated.
Shifts, even in the short term, are going to raise costs. That'll either cut into profit margins or the prices will go up. Heck, both could happen. That creates a higher barrier of entry, and that may turn people off.
And call the company manipulative, if you want, but so what? You think the mass cancellations of DDB subscriptions wasn't also manipulative? You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits? And the new VTT policy shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention for the last 15-20 years. Fourth edition was supposed to ship with a VTT, but there were problems with the contracted developer. If it looks restrictive, it's supposed to be.
That said, policy can change. By all means, keep up that pressure. Fight for what you care about. But don't pretend they're the villain and you're the hero.
I am not going to call the mass cancellations manipularive. People are being very frank with why they are cancelling. WotC is trying to spin the story in their favor, massive difference.
Also, the OGL goes way beyond protecting the company from lawsuits, and the VTT policy is way overreaching like not allowing animations. The whole spew about an animated magic missile making it count more as a video game than a VTT is absurd.
Furthermore, doesn't matter how much bigger they are, if people are putting out products in the same market, they are a competitor.
You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits?
LOL This is the most ridiculous understatement of what OGL1.2 does that I've ever seen. I'd argue it's borderline shilling for WotC. OGL 1.2 makes it almost impossible for third party creators to successfully sue WotC over anything including blatant copyright infringement, and even if a creator does manage to obtain clear evidence that WotC deliberately copied their work (nearly impossible to do unless a WotC employee leaks e-mails or memos to you) they only can ask for monetary damages and that will only be what the creator can prove they lost in revenue due to WotC stealing their work. WotC will continue to be able to publish & sell that creators content and make a profit off of it and there is nothing a creator can do to stop them - even if WotC is found guilty of stealing that creator's work!
I wish your mental gymnastics were more impressive, but they strike me as rather rote. You do know it's possible for creators to independently arrive at the same idea, at near the same time, don't you? It's called simultaneous genesis. And if I were going to shill, I wouldn't do it for free. Presently, I prefer to keep a level head and detest anyone intent on playing Chicken Little.
You're automatically, irrationally, and cynically assuming the worst in a hypothetical situation. Why do that to yourself? Just look at the typical book development cycle. Both the Twilight Domain and Circle of Wildfire were first publicly available in an Unearthed Arcana article from October 2019. That's the open beta. How many months of internal testing do you think they went through before then? And if you'll recall, they weren't officially published until Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in November 2020. If we assume the typical of 6-7 weeks for printing large, hardcover orders that means they were done layout by late September at the earliest.
And that's just one example. Go back and look at everything else that eventually saw publication, if you don't believe me.
What you're basically doing it getting all twisted in knots over a crime which hasn't happened, and may never happened, over language that has become standard practice in licensing agreements. The only difference between this and before is language is more formal. You are aware that, under 1.0a, anything designated Open Game Content could be used by another creator, right? You owned the copyright to your work, and any Product Identity you labeled as such, but your Open Game Content was fair game. All people had to do was credit you properly.
Do you even understand what you're so upset about, or are you listening to what other people─who fuel anger for attention─are telling you to be angry about?
The first is that, regardless of actual reasonableness, taking something away is different from just not giving people something in the first place. If the 1.0a OGL had never existed, 1.2 might look totally fine.
The second is that the terms in the 1.2 OGL are pretty much exactly the kind of thing you come across in places like forums, Facebook, fan content policies, and so on, but most of those platforms are not particularly commercial, and even for the more commercial things such as YouTube (which also has pretty restrictive rules), well, YouTube isn't going to take advantage of a restrictive license to crush your content for competing with their product because you are their product.
The first is that, regardless of actual reasonableness, taking something away is different from just not giving people something in the first place. If the 1.0a OGL had never existed, 1.2 might look totally fine.
The second is that the terms in the 1.2 OGL are pretty much exactly the kind of thing you come across in places like forums, Facebook, fan content policies, and so on, but most of those platforms are not particularly commercial, and even for the more commercial things such as YouTube (which also has pretty restrictive rules), well, YouTube isn't going to take advantage of a restrictive license to crush your content for competing with their product because you are their product.
But if we look at this another way, If the OGL 1.0a never existed, D&D would never have gotten popular enough for this reaction. If WotC just sued everybody who made any content based on D&D and released public homebrew, D&D would have failed many many years ago and never be the brand it is now.
As for Youtube and Facebook, companies that literally abuse their communities over and over again really aren't a good argument as to why this should in anyway be acceptable, if anything they are the reverse. Both Facebook and Youtube also continues to host hateful content anyways. Meanwhile Youtube just takes down a user's video because Family Guy STOLE that video and included it in a family guy episode, for footage of Double Dribble. Youtube literally doesn't care about the rights of users, nor to investigate a single claim.
Admittedly the Video was restored after Seth McFarlane looked into the issue, apologized and got the claim removed from youtube himself, it was a very public thing. Needless to say, we should most definitely be wary of WotC acting like Google or Meta, just using automated bots that let's anybody take down anything with false claims is also highly problematic and really not something I would put past WotC.
But if we look at this another way, If the OGL 1.0a never existed, D&D would never have gotten popular enough for this reaction.
This is an assertion I've seen multiple times, but I haven't seen any real evidence for it being true.
D&D having a truce with fans was helpful, but the OGL also allowed a bunch of things that were not at all helpful to the brand, such as flooding the market with trash in the early 00s. It was really streaming (and, probably, COVID lockdowns) that made D&D explode in the last decade, and neither of those things actually has anything to do with the OGL.
But if we look at this another way, If the OGL 1.0a never existed, D&D would never have gotten popular enough for this reaction.
This is an assertion I've seen multiple times, but I haven't seen any real evidence for it being true.
D&D having a truce with fans was helpful, but the OGL also allowed a bunch of things that were not at all helpful to the brand, such as flooding the market with trash in the early 00s. It was really streaming (and, probably, COVID lockdowns) that made D&D explode in the last decade, and neither of those things actually has anything to do with the OGL.
Well it's true for Linux, Linux which is now the most used operating system in the world, primarily on mobile phones in the form of Android. Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds but primarily it's success was really related to the terrible state of licensing in Unix. Linux was able to implement the GPL a License even more open than D&D's OGL 1.0a, is a well written License that allows others to take Linux, modify it and then release the code which they modified the operating system with.
While you can say you haven't seen "evidence", you also have not seen evidence that it is false either, but what we do have is a rational argument which is simple, without the OGL, a lot less people would have supported D&D, people would have gone either to different systems or made their own which they are free to design as they want. The OGL essentially made a lot of competition instead reliant on the OGL as it is simply easier to make content based on D&D then not but without that license, that would never have happened.
Trash in the 00s was always going to happen, and D&D has been around a long time, streaming I would disagree with. Tools and utilities like Roll20, Dndbeyond, VTTs and many other tools have made it more popular, since it is easier to get into D&D than before, but things like VTTs rely on the OGL for hosting the content. WotC hates the success of VTTs and want to bulldoze the market for itself and treats the whole thing like a computer game, which fundamentally misses the point of a VTT to begin with, but oh well. So no, I disagree with you on a fundamental level, I believe the OGL is very key to the success of D&D, since the Internet brought with it a magnitude of ways for people to get into the game but WotC's latest plan threatens that, making it so that there is only one way in to D&D, and it's dumb.
Argue against that however much you want tho, the same things that made D&D popular will shift to Pathfinder 2E or other systems and D&D will fail while healthier systems replace it. Sure D&D won't die overnight or anything dramatic like that but as the community favors other systems it will slowly disappear from the limelight and other systems will win out, inevitably. So time ultimately will prove my argument right here, or perhaps WotC will themselves, if they are sensible enough to just backtrack on this entire terrible self-inflicted disaster.
Boycotts are not manipulation. People banding together to speak with their wallet is one of the few ways a consumer base can actually pushback against a corporation is not manipulation. There is no weird language, mental gymnastics, or dancing around facts with the mass D&D Beyond Sub cancellation. It is people being frank and simply speaking with their wallets.
So again, boycotts are not manipulation. Your statement is false.
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This is called Anecdotal evidence, as far as Battlemaster goes, you can do more damage with sharpshooter, crossbow expert and a light crossbow. Battlemaster is known as the best fighter sub-class for a reason but despite this, in the first 5E campaign I played as a not optimized Paladin and was starting too out-damage that build around level 8, this is also Anecdotal of course. A big part of this is about how your DM is tossing out encounters, one thing about Battlemaster is generally they are capable of burning all of their superiority die in a single turn, which outputs a significantly heavy amount of damage but then leaves them with no resources. So if your DM designs encounters to take that into consideration and to last around 4 rounds, that battlemaster will mostly seem lame from rounds 2-4.
Now if you compare this to a sorcerer who from level 5 can toss out a quickened fireball as a bonus action and then twin spell firebolt... sorcerer can still out damage this polearm battle master, your PAM Battlemaster is likely averaging around 52.8 DPR at level 5 (GWF may increase this a bit...) . Now the sorcerer with a fireball and firebolt against a single target is only doing around 30.8 damage, but the moment this jumps too two targets, this becomes around 61.4DPR and if there are three targets, 84.5 DPR. Now the sorcerer doesn't need to twin firebolt, they could opt for two rounds of quickened fireball each dealing an average of 53.9 DPR, meanwhile in this second round your battlemaster is out of resources and can't get them back until a short rest.
Other parts of encounter design can make this very anecdotal too. If you toss this battle master against a bunch of creatures with 10 HP, the battlemaster could potentially kill up to 5 targets, the sorcerer likely kills all in the AoE of fireball, and so there isn't much visible difference. But if you increase this too 20HP, the chances your battlemaster oneshots any of them drops significantly, meanwhile fireball is still oneshotting the vast majority of them.
What is not Ancedotal is that battlemaster is an early star, it burns fast but it's damage output really doesn't increase as significantly. At level 11 you're making 3+1 attacks with this PAM battlemaster, 6+1 with action surge, meanwhile battlemaster only has 5 superiority die at this level. The average DPR is likely around 77.9, Sorcerer at level 11 can twin spell Disintegrate for 40+10d6 damage for ~48.8 DPR to each target (for ~97.5 total). Or instead they could quicken Disintegrate and then cast firebolt on a single target to get 60.3 two rounds in a row meanwhile the battlemaster drops to 27.3 DPR for the rest of combat. Over a 2 round combat the sorcerer would average around 120.6 DPR while the battlemaster averages 105.2, and this is for single target, against multiple target AoEs win casters the damage game by even more. Additionally the Sorcerer would switch to quickened immolate on the 3rd round while your battlemaster is still stuck around 27.3 DPR...
Basically early on the Caster Martial balance is a lot less noticeable but by tier 3 casters are easy winning as they obliterate their targets from over 100 foot away while the PAM battlemaster is rushing up to melee range to do less damage. This also ignores various control spells, one cast of the hoover spell and the PAM battlemaster is basically useless, meanwhile hoover on a sorcerer can still cast ALL of their spells. Also sorcerer can just not walk into damaging or difficult terrains, Druid on the other hand can make those damaging and difficult terrains.
This is another point, if you look at just pure DPR then you also miss a significant amount of the caster/martial imbalance, A 6th level circle of the moon druid can transformed into a Giant Constrictor Snake, this form is notoriously overpowered as it can trivialize entire encounters, including some dragons, due to how insane the restrained condition can be. a 1st level cleric can cast bless, the DPR increase bless gives to the whole group from a single cast is crazy. Your 7th level wizard might cast the spell greater invisibility, now granting advantage to the target and disadvantage to most hostile creatures attacking that target.
This is a long ass Tangent, but somebody who doesn't understand the martial/caster imbalance is looking at things from a VERY VERY limited point of view.
Where does that increase in DPR come from though? (Hint: It doesn't come from casting bless on another caster that makes 1 attack roll for 4.5-5.5 damage on a hit. - FYI casting Bless on 3 allies casting Firebolt = a whopping increase of 3 DPR). Same goes for who is benefitting from that Giant Constrictor snake (that FYI has an AC of 12 and only 60 hp so is lucky to 2 rounds against a dragon), or that Greater Invisibility. You can't say Casters >>> Martials if your reason Casters are better is that they can increase the DPR of Martials.
So you're a level 11 party facing 1-2 boss monsters and those boss monsters don't have Legendary Resistance??? That sorcerer with Disintegrate does a big fat 0 damage against a monster with Legendary Resistance. Why don't you just cast Polymorph and waltz past?
Um... why in all living hells would a Sorcerer use 8 sorcery points and two of their top level spells in a combat that only lasts 2 rounds???? Why aren't they saving it for the boss combat of the day? Or are you suggesting it is common for the climax of an adventuring day to be a combat that only lasts 2 rounds?
If we look at Critrolestats as a proxy which is relatively unbiased:
Total Kills
HDYWTDT (Boss kills)
In otherwords : Martials kill bosses, Casters kill minions... The notable exceptions being Monk and Ranger who are just kind of bad at killing stuff.
a 1 DPR increase over a 5.5 DPR attack would be an increase, of 18% change... 18%! off of a single cast of bless on a single target, but even then you're numbers here just aren't accurate. If you assume an average attack roll hits 65% chance of the time, bless increases this by around 12.5% on average. That is a average 19.2% increase in DPR.
Now let's consider the idea that in the first round you cast bless, hit yourself, a warlock and a fighter. the 2nd round you cast guiding bolt, that is 14 average damage on a hit, so an average 9.1 DPR at 65% or with bless, an average DPR of 10.85 with bless. The warlock uses hex + eldritch blast, ~5.85 at 65% or ~6.975 at 77.5% and the fighter with a greatsword does ~6.5 at 65% or ~7.75 at 77.5%.
Of course if you had three casters you could be doing it too three casters and you'd get enough damage increase that in a 3+ round combat that Bless adds a significant amount of damage, easily more than a single guilding bolt.
At level 11, how many CR11 creatures even have legendary resistances to be that worried about it... maybe by CR15 but CR11 seems a bit low to be worrying about that.
Depends on how the encounter is set-up, if it's an ambush in an open field then it's quiet feasible, if it's an illithid, they tend to have minions who join in the boss fight as do other creatures. The fact is that a Sorcerer can still do that, the further point is sorcerer has a lot more choices in how to achieve a higher DPR than a Battlemaster of the same level does.
First off, those look like Critical Role characters, I don't really think that is a good basis, Critical Role needs all characters to get a good amount of screen time and what not. Secondarily you still have a sorcerer at 1st place on both lists..... 3rd off casters can simply do more than just Pure DPS, which is the whole point of saying it is more than just DPR.
4th, kills actually isn't a good representation of DPR, things like initiative can come in as characters that go first might do more damage and leaving more creatures open to being killed in following turns by the party. Example, Fireball doing ~21 damage, against 3 Ogres with 30HP, all three ogres survive with 9HP. Barbarian goes next who uses a Polearm, manages to hit each Ogre will attacking recklessly, doing ~12 damage to each. The sorcerer did more damage but Barbarian got more kills because the Sorcerer had a higher initiative.
Kills is more relevant than DPR to a characters' performance though, because if 5e damage means nothing until that damage kill something to stop it acting. A Fireball that does 100 DPR to 5 creatures but kills none of them has less effect that a fighter dealing 50 DPR to 1 creature and killing it.
Yup they are CR characters, b/c I know of no other so highly documented campaigns, if there are others feel free to add them. Pointing to one character on the list is no better than random anecdotes, the bulk of the boss kills across multiple campaigns are by martials, whereas the bulk of the total kills across multiple campaigns are by casters.
Sure casters can do other things besides killing, but generally the power of many of those things originates just as much (if not more so) from the martial than from the caster. E.g. Haste in isolation is a terrible spell most of the time, because a caster casting Haste of themselves is an utter waste, Haste is only a good spell b/c martial are good. If martials were a waste of space then Haste would also be a waste of space.
Bless is a fantastic spell because martials and warlocks (who are effectively martials with a wand) are good. If spells were always better than martials then Bless would be considered a bad spell b/c it does very little to benefit casting spells.
PS a party of level 11 characters vs a single CR 11 monster is a pathetically simple fight, you need at least CR 13 for a solo boss monster vs a party of level 11, and I'd be looking at CR 14-15 if they are coming into the fight with all their resources available.
*sigh*
Stop obsessing over numbers. It isn't germane to the thread topic.
Oh sorry. I forgot which thread this is. How did we get to martial/caster stuff from the OGL?
It's a bit sad to see that so few creators are actually sticking to their guns and boycotting D&D 5e content. Really I've only seen Kobold start putting out Pathfinder content instead. But both of my D&D groups are still planning to swap to Pathfinder when our current campaigns conclude.
Have a little perspective. The leak of 1.1 was less than three weeks ago. That is an insignificant amount of time, and nobody should be hastily making business decisions.
Fifth edition is still the current one, and until a new OGL is published 1.0(a) is still the metaphorical law of the land. Some creators have projects already in the work and cancelling everything now could be devastating. And we still don't actually know what's going to be in 1.2 or whatever it is they end up calling it. We have an idea, and there's room for feedback. I hope people take it seriously and don't just take the opportunity to air grievances or go on the attack. That's not constructive. Caring about the game means not abandoning it. It means fighting to make it better, and you can't do that if you burn bridges or walk away.
I'm not saying developers and publishers shouldn't branch out to other companies and systems. They absolutely should. There are tons of great games out there, and they all deserve some TLC. The ORC should be interesting to watch develop, and I do think we're past due for another shakeup anyway. Waiting to see how things pan out before totally abandoning the platform is also the wise and prudent move.
Actually, this is a good time to be making business decisions if you are a competitor like Paizo. A bunch of people are looking for new systems so striking while the iron is still hot is probably a good idea.
Not to mention the amount of pressure this can put on WotC and Hasbro. If we look at the current OGL "draft," they are still being rather manipulative. Their restrictions on VTT's are also concerning. Honestly, keeping the pressure on WotC and Hasbro is still a pretty good move.
The reality is, small RPG publishers want to sell their product, and they don't care about the VTT fight. They care about the royalties fight, but Wizards already caved on that. If lots of players start jumping the publishers will follow, but they're unlikely to lead the way.
I never said people and entities shouldn't make decisions. I said they shouldn't make them hastily.
Let's be frank: nobody is honestly a competitor with Hasbro and its subsidiaries. It dwarfs everyone else by comparison. Paizo still includes 1.0a in the back of its books as a cost saving measure. Profit margins are thin for basically everyone, and they're unionized so it might actually be worse there. I also think they're a bad example because they've already diversified. There are Pathfinder comics and novels, and they've even licensed the setting for Savage Worlds. The Kickstarter was a few years ago. And let's not forget that Paizo has been burnt by WotC before. This isn't uncharted territory for the company, and it wouldn't surprise me if it were anticipated.
Shifts, even in the short term, are going to raise costs. That'll either cut into profit margins or the prices will go up. Heck, both could happen. That creates a higher barrier of entry, and that may turn people off.
And call the company manipulative, if you want, but so what? You think the mass cancellations of DDB subscriptions wasn't also manipulative? You think the company shouldn't protect itself from frivolous lawsuits? And the new VTT policy shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention for the last 15-20 years. Fourth edition was supposed to ship with a VTT, but there were problems with the contracted developer. If it looks restrictive, it's supposed to be.
That said, policy can change. By all means, keep up that pressure. Fight for what you care about. But don't pretend they're the villain and you're the hero.
I am not going to call the mass cancellations manipularive. People are being very frank with why they are cancelling. WotC is trying to spin the story in their favor, massive difference.
Also, the OGL goes way beyond protecting the company from lawsuits, and the VTT policy is way overreaching like not allowing animations. The whole spew about an animated magic missile making it count more as a video game than a VTT is absurd.
Furthermore, doesn't matter how much bigger they are, if people are putting out products in the same market, they are a competitor.
LOL This is the most ridiculous understatement of what OGL1.2 does that I've ever seen. I'd argue it's borderline shilling for WotC. OGL 1.2 makes it almost impossible for third party creators to successfully sue WotC over anything including blatant copyright infringement, and even if a creator does manage to obtain clear evidence that WotC deliberately copied their work (nearly impossible to do unless a WotC employee leaks e-mails or memos to you) they only can ask for monetary damages and that will only be what the creator can prove they lost in revenue due to WotC stealing their work. WotC will continue to be able to publish & sell that creators content and make a profit off of it and there is nothing a creator can do to stop them - even if WotC is found guilty of stealing that creator's work!
I do hope they keep 3rd party content and don’t take it away permanently I haven’t see much about OGL but I use 3rd party things a lot and it would suck if they no longer have it.
Boycotts are manipulation.
I wish your mental gymnastics were more impressive, but they strike me as rather rote. You do know it's possible for creators to independently arrive at the same idea, at near the same time, don't you? It's called simultaneous genesis. And if I were going to shill, I wouldn't do it for free. Presently, I prefer to keep a level head and detest anyone intent on playing Chicken Little.
You're automatically, irrationally, and cynically assuming the worst in a hypothetical situation. Why do that to yourself? Just look at the typical book development cycle. Both the Twilight Domain and Circle of Wildfire were first publicly available in an Unearthed Arcana article from October 2019. That's the open beta. How many months of internal testing do you think they went through before then? And if you'll recall, they weren't officially published until Tasha's Cauldron of Everything in November 2020. If we assume the typical of 6-7 weeks for printing large, hardcover orders that means they were done layout by late September at the earliest.
And that's just one example. Go back and look at everything else that eventually saw publication, if you don't believe me.
What you're basically doing it getting all twisted in knots over a crime which hasn't happened, and may never happened, over language that has become standard practice in licensing agreements. The only difference between this and before is language is more formal. You are aware that, under 1.0a, anything designated Open Game Content could be used by another creator, right? You owned the copyright to your work, and any Product Identity you labeled as such, but your Open Game Content was fair game. All people had to do was credit you properly.
Do you even understand what you're so upset about, or are you listening to what other people─who fuel anger for attention─are telling you to be angry about?
There's two core problems.
The first is that, regardless of actual reasonableness, taking something away is different from just not giving people something in the first place. If the 1.0a OGL had never existed, 1.2 might look totally fine.
The second is that the terms in the 1.2 OGL are pretty much exactly the kind of thing you come across in places like forums, Facebook, fan content policies, and so on, but most of those platforms are not particularly commercial, and even for the more commercial things such as YouTube (which also has pretty restrictive rules), well, YouTube isn't going to take advantage of a restrictive license to crush your content for competing with their product because you are their product.
But if we look at this another way, If the OGL 1.0a never existed, D&D would never have gotten popular enough for this reaction. If WotC just sued everybody who made any content based on D&D and released public homebrew, D&D would have failed many many years ago and never be the brand it is now.
As for Youtube and Facebook, companies that literally abuse their communities over and over again really aren't a good argument as to why this should in anyway be acceptable, if anything they are the reverse. Both Facebook and Youtube also continues to host hateful content anyways. Meanwhile Youtube just takes down a user's video because Family Guy STOLE that video and included it in a family guy episode, for footage of Double Dribble. Youtube literally doesn't care about the rights of users, nor to investigate a single claim.
Admittedly the Video was restored after Seth McFarlane looked into the issue, apologized and got the claim removed from youtube himself, it was a very public thing. Needless to say, we should most definitely be wary of WotC acting like Google or Meta, just using automated bots that let's anybody take down anything with false claims is also highly problematic and really not something I would put past WotC.
This is an assertion I've seen multiple times, but I haven't seen any real evidence for it being true.
D&D having a truce with fans was helpful, but the OGL also allowed a bunch of things that were not at all helpful to the brand, such as flooding the market with trash in the early 00s. It was really streaming (and, probably, COVID lockdowns) that made D&D explode in the last decade, and neither of those things actually has anything to do with the OGL.
Well it's true for Linux, Linux which is now the most used operating system in the world, primarily on mobile phones in the form of Android. Linux was developed by Linus Torvalds but primarily it's success was really related to the terrible state of licensing in Unix. Linux was able to implement the GPL a License even more open than D&D's OGL 1.0a, is a well written License that allows others to take Linux, modify it and then release the code which they modified the operating system with.
While you can say you haven't seen "evidence", you also have not seen evidence that it is false either, but what we do have is a rational argument which is simple, without the OGL, a lot less people would have supported D&D, people would have gone either to different systems or made their own which they are free to design as they want. The OGL essentially made a lot of competition instead reliant on the OGL as it is simply easier to make content based on D&D then not but without that license, that would never have happened.
Trash in the 00s was always going to happen, and D&D has been around a long time, streaming I would disagree with. Tools and utilities like Roll20, Dndbeyond, VTTs and many other tools have made it more popular, since it is easier to get into D&D than before, but things like VTTs rely on the OGL for hosting the content. WotC hates the success of VTTs and want to bulldoze the market for itself and treats the whole thing like a computer game, which fundamentally misses the point of a VTT to begin with, but oh well. So no, I disagree with you on a fundamental level, I believe the OGL is very key to the success of D&D, since the Internet brought with it a magnitude of ways for people to get into the game but WotC's latest plan threatens that, making it so that there is only one way in to D&D, and it's dumb.
Argue against that however much you want tho, the same things that made D&D popular will shift to Pathfinder 2E or other systems and D&D will fail while healthier systems replace it. Sure D&D won't die overnight or anything dramatic like that but as the community favors other systems it will slowly disappear from the limelight and other systems will win out, inevitably. So time ultimately will prove my argument right here, or perhaps WotC will themselves, if they are sensible enough to just backtrack on this entire terrible self-inflicted disaster.
Boycotts are not manipulation. People banding together to speak with their wallet is one of the few ways a consumer base can actually pushback against a corporation is not manipulation. There is no weird language, mental gymnastics, or dancing around facts with the mass D&D Beyond Sub cancellation. It is people being frank and simply speaking with their wallets.
So again, boycotts are not manipulation. Your statement is false.