Cap'n Kobold
Hero
Without being able to rest, how far are the martial team going to get before they run out of resources?
D&D (2024) Can A Spell Caster Out Damage a Martial Consistently?
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
TheSword
Legend
Hit Dice healing + short rest ability recovery gets you a long way as a martial.
Well, that's a table dynamic issue, and they ought to put some deep thought to spotlight sharing.
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
Unless you're allowing short rests much more freely than long rests, you're still running off a lot less effective HP than party A.
I acknowledged short rests for the casters. Why wouldn't the martials get the those too?
"After you finish a Long Rest, you must wait at least 16 hours before starting another one." The rules don't allow for starting long rests until 16 hours minimum of completing a long rest. Short rests are just an hour of uninterrupted non-strenuous activity. Either party can manage many short rests but neither can begin a long rest.
The rogue's resources are depleted by lack of hit points. It's not like rogues run out of uncanny dodges or slight of hand actions. Wizards run out of slots to cast knock. Rogues just keep taking actions.
The champion's heroic inspiration renews every turn. Weapon mastery doesn't use resources. Second wind and action surge recovers on short rests. Attacks and extra attacks are at-will. Extra feats are permanent. Improved critical, remarkable athlete, and fighting styles are always there. He might run out of uses of indomitable if he needs to use it.
The barbarian can run out of rages, but those can be recovered on short rests too, and a barbarian out of rages is more useful in a fight than a wizard out of spell slots.
The monk can run out of focus points and can only use uncanny metabolism once per day, but focus points also recover on a short rest and a monk without focus points is also more useful in a fight than a wizard without spell slots.
On the flip side....
The cleric will still have a decent AC and renewable channel divinity. If it's a war domain, for example, the war priest bonus attacks also renew on a short rest. Clerics will still have cantrips to use.
The druid will recover wild shape uses on short rest, which is pretty useful for a moon druid under the premise. I don't think the wild shapes in the scenario could carry.
The sorcerer cannot do much without spell slots and sorcery points. At least font of magic can generate some slots to help extend the spellcasting.
The wizard is left with rituals and cantrips. There's still a use there but it's obviously not the same.
That entire party becomes limited to divine intervention, shapeshifts, cantrips, and rituals. That's not enough.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Well, for at least some of them (I'm specifically thinking of someone who isn't on this forum, as far as I'm aware)...they just think that that's how it should be. That magic should just be better than non-magic for handling pretty much everything, because a magic-user has studied or exploited their ancestry or gotten a pact or whatever else. They take it as a self-evident truth that magic--which in 5e functionally means "spellcasting"--is just strictly superior to non-magic, and anyone who disagrees is trying to ruin the meaning of magic, more or less.
For folks like that, "spotlight" isn't even a remotely relevant topic. If you want to be powerful, choose to be a spellcaster. If you want to be a non-spellcaster, you clearly don't want to be all that powerful.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Without magic-derived healing--meaning, spell slots, openly magical features like Lay on Hands, and inherently magical consumables like healing potions--how can the martial characters keep up with the quantity of damage they receive from combats?
Because you only get back half your HD with each Long Rest. Meaning, in the absence of magic-derived healing, you get one day of full-ish healing, and from there on out you're simply not going to recover properly unless you take a full day doing nothing dangerous so you can get back all of your HD. I've been the party healer (indeed, a party healer as a Celestial Warlock, so my cures were always fat!), in a group where no one else was a spellcaster. I'm quite well aware that HD simply don't keep up with the damage output of even 5ish combats, to say nothing of the 6-8 or beyond that folks seem to think martial characters can do without a sweat.
"A long way" doesn't mean "all the way." Which is the key problem.
Asisreo
Patron Badass
The reason I can't seem to believe that martials are so far behind casters in terms of anything is because I've really yet to hear anything concrete in favor of that argument. Its all mostly vague assertions based on several implicit assumptions which I'm supposed to hold true, despite my experience.
I mean, if you say that "martials run out of resources during a dungeon just as fast or faster than a caster", then it should be logical to ask how you'd be so sure. I mean, you can reference their healing spell slots and defensive spells, but that's really not concrete. If I spend a spell slot healing, I can't use that spell slot for other things. Likewise, if I spent that spell slot on other things, I can't use that slot for healing.
If a group of martials end up dying before a group of spellcasters, or vice versa, how do we know that the unsuccessful group didn't play suboptimally, rather than the class themselves carrying the entire dungeon.
Playing a martial might seem like its simple, but there are still things that a martial has to consider that maybe a caster doesn't. Obviously the reverse of that is true too. Its very possible to just make a bad decision and lose everything even if you felt like it wasn't a bad decision.
I mean, if you say that "martials run out of resources during a dungeon just as fast or faster than a caster", then it should be logical to ask how you'd be so sure. I mean, you can reference their healing spell slots and defensive spells, but that's really not concrete. If I spend a spell slot healing, I can't use that spell slot for other things. Likewise, if I spent that spell slot on other things, I can't use that slot for healing.
If a group of martials end up dying before a group of spellcasters, or vice versa, how do we know that the unsuccessful group didn't play suboptimally, rather than the class themselves carrying the entire dungeon.
Playing a martial might seem like its simple, but there are still things that a martial has to consider that maybe a caster doesn't. Obviously the reverse of that is true too. Its very possible to just make a bad decision and lose everything even if you felt like it wasn't a bad decision.
Because the martial healing I mentioned isn't all based on hit dice and hit dice recovery during a long rest is irrelevant in a discussion where long rests aren't applicable. The parties start the day with full everything. They cannot start a long rest until at least 16 hours after the previous long rest. They're taking short rests. Short rests recover some spell slots once for wizards and some sorc points once for sorcerers. Short rests recover a rage, a second wind, and all focus points.
In that 16 hours to start another long rest and then 8 hours to complete the long rest the all martial group can take many short rests even if long rests become part of the conversation.
The comparison was between a party with a barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue vs cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard at 10th level in a 10th level adventure. Looking at HD that you mentioned that's 10d12, 10d10, 10d8, and 10d8 hit dice for self-healing for the martial group; and the fighter and barbarian likely have 16 CON while the monk and rogue likely have 14 CON. That's ~310 hp of HD healing. The caster party has 10d8, 10d8, 10d6, and 10d6; and it's possible the Cleric and Druid have 16 CON while it's more likely the sorcerer and wizard have 14 CON going for DEX instead IME. Benefit of the doubt favoring the casters all having 16 CON would give the casters ~280hp of self healing that way, running -30hp deficit even with that benefit of the doubt.
The 10th level fighter (champion) has 4 second winds that heal ~62hp and the fighter recovers 1 second wind every short rest for 15.5hp each or possibly for other uses instead but given the heroic inspiration available the likelihood of that need is low. But the fighter can take a short rest and heal that 15.5hp regardless many times if needed.
The barbarian (world tree) has 4 rages. Each rage grants the barbarian 10 temp hp (40) and the start of each of the barbarian's turns lets the barbarian grant 3d6 (~10.5) temp hp to an ally near him. Rage lasts up to 10 minutes but combats don't. 3 rounds of combat is about 31 thp, and using bonus actions after the fighting is over to continue raging allows for topping up to a higher average leading into the next combats. The upper limit is 190 thp total but the realistic number is ~60-70 between what's the barbarian's 10 thp and what he hands out. That's per rage so ~240 thp plus ~60 per additional rages recovered on short rests.
The barbarian also only takes half damage on most typical attacks while raging.
The monk (way of mercy) has 10 focus points that he can fully renew once per day with Uncanny Metabolism and also renew every short rest. Uncanny metabolism also heals the monk ~14.5 hp in the process. Mercy monks can replace 1 attack with their Hand of Healing for free when they use Flurry of Blows. IE the Nick monk spending 1 ki does 2 attacks with extra attack, 1 off hand attack, 2 attacks with flurry of blow, and one healing touch or a 3rd attack with flurry. Assuming 20 DEX and 16 WIS for this build, Hand of Healing heals ~7.5 hp at that level so spending maybe 7 focus points out of 20 before short rests that day would be ~52.5 hp of healing. Maybe 3 uses for each short rest afterwards for ~22.5 per short rest. This leaves a lot of focus points for other uses.
The monk also has evasion at no resource cost, and deflect attacks with unlimited uses on reactions. A 20 DEX monk deflects ~20 damage per use with the ability. A monk deflecting 2 attacks in 8 encounters prevents ~320hp of damage.
The assassin doesn't add healing. Rogues are just good at avoiding damage with Cunning Action, Cunning Strike, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, and in the assassin's case possible use of Roving Aim via kiting.
How many short rests can this group take in the same amount of time it takes the casters to take a long rest? I'm not going to get into that because it turns into some huge numbers but I wanted to make that point. 2 or 3 short rests in pretty easy to accomplish, however. So the HD disparity is ~30hp, That's ~700hp of healing and thp before defensive abilities that prevent damage including the 30 hp deficit. With HD healing that's over 1000hp the martial party has in a day without pushing it.
Spell healing was so bad 2024 rules had to buff it. You can show the spell healing, thp from wild shape, and channel divinity and we'll compare further. Then I'll keep on track and point out that each spell used for healing or temp hp is a spell not used for damage (or control or versatility).
Except skills don't run out and can be used from start until finish, but spell slots run out and cannot go all the way, which is the day point. A lot of spell options when slots runs out becomes an illusion of choice.
TheSword
Legend
Long rest has changed in 2024 to return all HD spent not half. So a fighter is healing their level x (1d10 + Con Mod) every day. Plus repeated use of second wind (2-4 times a day) plus another for every short rest they take.
Let’s be clear, you don’t need magical healing now in D&D for anything other than battlefield first aid.
A Con 14 fighter at level 5 can heal an average of 95 hp every day assuming two short rests.
At level 10 they can heal an average 176 hp in a day in the same circumstance.
How much are you getting from magical healing?
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