Oh, absolutely, but they're also part of the appeal.
as much as i want martials to succeed, i have to agree about big spells being part of the appeal of high levels. i don't play tier 4 but i can't imagine it's spellcasting acting as the great filter there.
@Agilemind, would you predict poor sales for the upcoming lv 10-20 vecna adventure? or significant DM frustration at it being difficult to play due to spells?
Compared to what? I would certainly predict the Vecna adventure will have worse sales than Curse of Strahd or Waterdeep Dragon Heist. However, the popularity of Vecna thanks to Critical Role might boost it over Wild Beyond the Witchlight. My prediction would be around the same popularity as Spelljammer since it is distinctive in being one of very few high level campiagns, and a popular villain. But, I suspect many DMs will choose not to run/buy it because of dislike of running high level games due to the additional prep that's required.
Oh, absolutely, but they're also part of the appeal.
The people they appeal to don't care about game balance though. They are the ones who Homebrew ridiculously OP stuff, give their players 20 magic items each. Who allow a Nat20 Persuasion check to allow you to seduce a dragon, or a Nat20 athletics to allow you to jump 50 ft in the air, grab hold of a dragon and full-nelson (is that the right move? I don't know anything about wrestling) them into the ground.
Oh, absolutely, but they're also part of the appeal.
as much as i want martials to succeed, i have to agree about big spells being part of the appeal of high levels. i don't play tier 4 but i can't imagine it's spellcasting acting as the great filter there.
@Agilemind, would you predict poor sales for the upcoming lv 10-20 vecna adventure? or significant DM frustration at it being difficult to play due to spells?
Compared to what? I would certainly predict the Vecna adventure will have worse sales than Curse of Strahd or Waterdeep Dragon Heist. However, the popularity of Vecna thanks to Critical Role might boost it over Wild Beyond the Witchlight. My prediction would be around the same popularity as Spelljammer since it is distinctive in being one of very few high level campiagns, and a popular villain. But, I suspect many DMs will choose not to run/buy it because of dislike of running high level games due to the additional prep that's required.
I meant sight-unseen in the context of it being late game and therefore suffuse with world altering spells. so, for official modules: late game a pain or an appeal?
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...or a Nat20 athletics to allow you to jump 50 ft in the air, grab hold of a dragon and full-nelson (is that the right move? I don't know anything about wrestling) them into the ground.
Suplex or Piledriver, depending on your video game references... :) (Google "suplex a train" for example.)
Ironically, allowing crazy moves like that to be "standard" for high level martials would at least help fix the martial/caster divide.
Oh, absolutely, but they're also part of the appeal.
as much as i want martials to succeed, i have to agree about big spells being part of the appeal of high levels. i don't play tier 4 but i can't imagine it's spellcasting acting as the great filter there.
@Agilemind, would you predict poor sales for the upcoming lv 10-20 vecna adventure? or significant DM frustration at it being difficult to play due to spells?
Compared to what? I would certainly predict the Vecna adventure will have worse sales than Curse of Strahd or Waterdeep Dragon Heist. However, the popularity of Vecna thanks to Critical Role might boost it over Wild Beyond the Witchlight. My prediction would be around the same popularity as Spelljammer since it is distinctive in being one of very few high level campiagns, and a popular villain. But, I suspect many DMs will choose not to run/buy it because of dislike of running high level games due to the additional prep that's required.
I meant sight-unseen in the context of it being late game and therefore suffuse with world altering spells. so, for official modules: late game a pain or an appeal?
Late game seems to be a niche market. There are certainly some players who love it and some DMs that run it a lot, but they seem to be a minority. Hence the relative paucity of late-game modules. Though I think the same can be said for low-level games as well, most of my D&D friends prefer to start at level 3 thus tend to skip the intro dungeon to most published modules.
The people they appeal to don't care about game balance though. They are the ones who Homebrew ridiculously OP stuff, give their players 20 magic items each. Who allow a Nat20 Persuasion check to allow you to seduce a dragon, or a Nat20 athletics to allow you to jump 50 ft in the air, grab hold of a dragon and full-nelson (is that the right move? I don't know anything about wrestling) them into the ground.
I disagree that that's not caring about game balance. The core problem with martial-caster balance is that there's a subset of people who insist that wizards should be over-the-top cinematic and fighters should be boring and mundane, and that just doesn't work. Either everyone should be over-the-top, or no-one. Thus, when you let the barbarian jump fifty feet into the air and full-nelson a dragon... that's game balance.
It's no problem balancing caster vs martial when your concept of martial is, say, Naruto.
Terrain only enables you to block if the gaps are 5 feet wide.
But of course now all my combats are featureless rooms? It's straw-man after straw-man argument with you, why ask what I want if you're just going to decide I meant something completely different from what I said and throw out wild accusations about how I'm surely just playing the game wrong?
Because clearly nobody that wants balance improvements could possibly know how to actually play the game? I must just be some kind of stupid dumb-**** who's never even played D&D, right?
And all I was doing was giving an example of something martials ought to be better at, yet it's yet another area where casters are superior because their control options actually control, where a martial's are massively underpowered and easily ignored.
1) I'm not saying you don't know how to play the game - but when you say things like "martials are easily ignored" I have to wonder how your encounters are designed, because they do seem overly simplistic from here.
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies - which again, if your maps have actual terrain features, matters more than you imply, chokepoints don't have to be hard barricades - but when your martials add in things like Sentinel or Grappler or Shield Master (note that all of these are half-feats now) and/or reach weapons then martials become far more than just doorstops. You're also dismissing Weapon Mastery despite it including things like Topple, Slow, Push, and Sap.
3) The casters' options cost valuable resources while the martials' don't. A barbarian can grapple, a fighter can shove, and a rogue can CS all day long. They're also less costly action-wise - inflicting conditions as part of your Attack action is a lot less of a burden than needing your entire Action, a spell slot, and your concentration. WM only adds to the list of what they can inflict.
...or a Nat20 athletics to allow you to jump 50 ft in the air, grab hold of a dragon and full-nelson (is that the right move? I don't know anything about wrestling) them into the ground.
Suplex or Piledriver, depending on your video game references... :) (Google "suplex a train" for example.)
Ironically, allowing crazy moves like that to be "standard" for high level martials would at least help fix the martial/caster divide.
But why would it? This is what I don't understand. Ok now you can use your full Action + Movement to make a running high jump, jump 50 ft, use one attack to grapple, a second to pin (from Grappler feat) and you have now suplexed the dragon, dealing 5d6 non-magical bludgeoning damage to it, and half as much to yourself. Whereas if a caster had simply cast Fly on you, you could have flown up, and made 2 attacks against the dragon with your Bloodaxe dealing 2d10+20+2d6 magical damage to the dragon.
Plus we routinely see that martial advocates do not care about grappling, they didn't care that the UA massively nerfed it, they didn't care about a Brawler class built around it. As far as I can tell, martial players want to deal full martial damage and do crowd control, when casters have to choose to either deal damage or do crowd control.
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies
While there certainly are maps where that's adequate, a lot of maps require blocking 10', 15', or more, and there you run into the problem that opportunity attacks in 5e consume your reaction and are therefore 1/round. Which is fine if you've got one enemy, but not if you have multiple. As a result, it's almost always better to use zoning spells.
Ironically, allowing crazy moves like that to be "standard" for high level martials would at least help fix the martial/caster divide.
But why would it? This is what I don't understand. Ok now you can use your full Action + Movement to make a running high jump, jump 50 ft, use one attack to grapple, a second to pin (from Grappler feat) and you have now suplexed the dragon, dealing 5d6 non-magical bludgeoning damage to it, and half as much to yourself. Whereas if a caster had simply cast Fly on you, you could have flown up, and made 2 attacks against the dragon with your Bloodaxe dealing 2d10+20+2d6 magical damage to the dragon.
I'm not talking about that specific action / mechanic. I just mean that giving high-level martials outlandish anime/videogame powers like "suplex a dragon" and "bisect a building" or whatever would go a long way to making up the gap with high-level casters. It wouldn't fix it outright, though.
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies
While there certainly are maps where that's adequate, a lot of maps require blocking 10', 15', or more, and there you run into the problem that opportunity attacks in 5e consume your reaction and are therefore 1/round. Which is fine if you've got one enemy, but not if you have multiple. As a result, it's almost always better to use zoning spells.
Except you don't actually want to draw fire from all of the enemies. The ideal situation for the party is for enemies to spread their attacks out across different members of the party because focus-fire far more dangerous.
Except you don't actually want to draw fire from all of the enemies. The ideal situation for the party is for enemies to spread their attacks out across different members of the party because focus-fire far more dangerous.
If your goal is preventing enemies from moving through a space, you want to ... prevent them from moving through that space. Ideally you do this with an effect that isn't attackable, such as a wall spell.
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies
While there certainly are maps where that's adequate, a lot of maps require blocking 10', 15', or more, and there you run into the problem that opportunity attacks in 5e consume your reaction and are therefore 1/round. Which is fine if you've got one enemy, but not if you have multiple. As a result, it's almost always better to use zoning spells.
I'd be happy to playtest an official reactions-for-movespeed trade action/feat/ability/etc. and martial casting interference. and a real taunt. the lack of attention big or small speaks to devs priorities not being on the martial/caster divide at all. even releasing a single page at a time with no follow-up survey would be something. even just a youtube short if an interview. I'm on a bit of a transparency kick at the moment and the continued silence on this sorta bugs me (even if it is corporate de rigueur).
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies
While there certainly are maps where that's adequate, a lot of maps require blocking 10', 15', or more, and there you run into the problem that opportunity attacks in 5e consume your reaction and are therefore 1/round. Which is fine if you've got one enemy, but not if you have multiple. As a result, it's almost always better to use zoning spells.
I never said zoning spells aren't better (when they work.) They should be, because they cost resources and many of them need concentration. But there is still a lot of value on most battlefields in having a barbarian up in the enemy's face rather than, say, a second entangle or hypnotic pattern.
I never said zoning spells aren't better (when they work.) They should be, because they cost resources and many of them need concentration. But there is still a lot of value on most battlefields in having a barbarian up in the enemy's face rather than, say, a second entangle or hypnotic pattern.
The need to use extra healing at the end of the fight? I'm sorry, I'm not seeing it. It's an unfortunate design issue of 5e that you're generally best off with all-ranged characters (if you want a pure martial... use a dex fighter with a bow).
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Compared to what? I would certainly predict the Vecna adventure will have worse sales than Curse of Strahd or Waterdeep Dragon Heist. However, the popularity of Vecna thanks to Critical Role might boost it over Wild Beyond the Witchlight. My prediction would be around the same popularity as Spelljammer since it is distinctive in being one of very few high level campiagns, and a popular villain. But, I suspect many DMs will choose not to run/buy it because of dislike of running high level games due to the additional prep that's required.
The people they appeal to don't care about game balance though. They are the ones who Homebrew ridiculously OP stuff, give their players 20 magic items each. Who allow a Nat20 Persuasion check to allow you to seduce a dragon, or a Nat20 athletics to allow you to jump 50 ft in the air, grab hold of a dragon and full-nelson (is that the right move? I don't know anything about wrestling) them into the ground.
I meant sight-unseen in the context of it being late game and therefore suffuse with world altering spells. so, for official modules: late game a pain or an appeal?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Suplex or Piledriver, depending on your video game references... :) (Google "suplex a train" for example.)
Ironically, allowing crazy moves like that to be "standard" for high level martials would at least help fix the martial/caster divide.
Late game seems to be a niche market. There are certainly some players who love it and some DMs that run it a lot, but they seem to be a minority. Hence the relative paucity of late-game modules. Though I think the same can be said for low-level games as well, most of my D&D friends prefer to start at level 3 thus tend to skip the intro dungeon to most published modules.
I disagree that that's not caring about game balance. The core problem with martial-caster balance is that there's a subset of people who insist that wizards should be over-the-top cinematic and fighters should be boring and mundane, and that just doesn't work. Either everyone should be over-the-top, or no-one. Thus, when you let the barbarian jump fifty feet into the air and full-nelson a dragon... that's game balance.
It's no problem balancing caster vs martial when your concept of martial is, say, Naruto.
Then don't buy it, nobody is forcing you. It's easily worth the money for me.
For someone who claims to be so against strawmen you seem to have no problem using them yourself.
1) I'm not saying you don't know how to play the game - but when you say things like "martials are easily ignored" I have to wonder how your encounters are designed, because they do seem overly simplistic from here.
2) 5ft is what they (typically) block with their bodies - which again, if your maps have actual terrain features, matters more than you imply, chokepoints don't have to be hard barricades - but when your martials add in things like Sentinel or Grappler or Shield Master (note that all of these are half-feats now) and/or reach weapons then martials become far more than just doorstops. You're also dismissing Weapon Mastery despite it including things like Topple, Slow, Push, and Sap.
3) The casters' options cost valuable resources while the martials' don't. A barbarian can grapple, a fighter can shove, and a rogue can CS all day long. They're also less costly action-wise - inflicting conditions as part of your Attack action is a lot less of a burden than needing your entire Action, a spell slot, and your concentration. WM only adds to the list of what they can inflict.
But why would it? This is what I don't understand. Ok now you can use your full Action + Movement to make a running high jump, jump 50 ft, use one attack to grapple, a second to pin (from Grappler feat) and you have now suplexed the dragon, dealing 5d6 non-magical bludgeoning damage to it, and half as much to yourself. Whereas if a caster had simply cast Fly on you, you could have flown up, and made 2 attacks against the dragon with your Bloodaxe dealing 2d10+20+2d6 magical damage to the dragon.
Plus we routinely see that martial advocates do not care about grappling, they didn't care that the UA massively nerfed it, they didn't care about a Brawler class built around it. As far as I can tell, martial players want to deal full martial damage and do crowd control, when casters have to choose to either deal damage or do crowd control.
While there certainly are maps where that's adequate, a lot of maps require blocking 10', 15', or more, and there you run into the problem that opportunity attacks in 5e consume your reaction and are therefore 1/round. Which is fine if you've got one enemy, but not if you have multiple. As a result, it's almost always better to use zoning spells.
I'm not talking about that specific action / mechanic. I just mean that giving high-level martials outlandish anime/videogame powers like "suplex a dragon" and "bisect a building" or whatever would go a long way to making up the gap with high-level casters. It wouldn't fix it outright, though.
Except you don't actually want to draw fire from all of the enemies. The ideal situation for the party is for enemies to spread their attacks out across different members of the party because focus-fire far more dangerous.
If your goal is preventing enemies from moving through a space, you want to ... prevent them from moving through that space. Ideally you do this with an effect that isn't attackable, such as a wall spell.
I'd be happy to playtest an official reactions-for-movespeed trade action/feat/ability/etc. and martial casting interference. and a real taunt. the lack of attention big or small speaks to devs priorities not being on the martial/caster divide at all. even releasing a single page at a time with no follow-up survey would be something. even just a youtube short if an interview. I'm on a bit of a transparency kick at the moment and the continued silence on this sorta bugs me (even if it is corporate de rigueur).
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
I never said zoning spells aren't better (when they work.) They should be, because they cost resources and many of them need concentration. But there is still a lot of value on most battlefields in having a barbarian up in the enemy's face rather than, say, a second entangle or hypnotic pattern.
The need to use extra healing at the end of the fight? I'm sorry, I'm not seeing it. It's an unfortunate design issue of 5e that you're generally best off with all-ranged characters (if you want a pure martial... use a dex fighter with a bow).