D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Minigiant]

Oh, I don't believe its possible for a high level martial to exist without supernatural abilities in a form I'd want in my game. It would require you either radically redefine what "mundane" means, or that you go narrative, neither of which are acceptable options to me. At some point you have to flip that switch.

If other people want to advocate for that, that's fine.

This is why I say more classes.

Because there are some fans that say mundane martials have an upper limit before high levels and that non-caster would be required to have magic items

And there are some fans that say mundane martials don't have an upper limit before high levels and that non-caster would be required to have supernatural nonspell features.

A Fighter with a +3 Armor, +3 longsword, and a shield of fireballs.
A Barbarian with 30 Strength and 30 Constitution who can lift as if Large size.
A Monk who can run up walls, stand on water, teleport, and shoot ki blasts.
A Knight with+2 longsword of kings, and Expertise in Persuasion, History,and Athletics.
A Warblade who can attack the strands of reality to create air blasts and planar gates.
A Marksmen who can craft and shoot arrows with masterwork, alchemical, and/or magical arrowheads.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

I'm in the camp that thinks more magic items is the simplest solution. Not pluses on weapons and armor, that just gives characters another hurdle to jump through to keep up with the monsters. I mean utility items. Any time a full caster has a spell that completely throws the exploration/social pillars out of whack, sprinkle some items around that do the same thing, or something similar enough that it gives the same capability to non-casters. Then you can balance for an adventure and a setting where any party can reliably do whatever that special magic thing is, if they're high enough level. Magic in Dungeons and Dragons is reliable, ubiquitous, safe, and predictable. Lean into that. The wizard can still Fly or Comprehend Languages without needing to use an item, and that's useful. It's just not so useful that the wizard is playing chess while the fighter and the rogue are playing checkers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is why I say more classes.

Because there are some fans that say mundane martials have an upper limit before high levels and that non-caster would be required to have magic items

And there are some fans that say mundane martials don't have an upper limit before high levels and that non-caster would be required to have supernatural nonspell features.

A Fighter with a +3 Armor, +3 longsword, and a shield of fireballs.
A Barbarian with 30 Strength and 30 Constitution who can lift as if Large size.
A Monk who can run up walls, stand on water, teleport, and shoot ki blasts.
A Knight with+2 longsword of kings, and Expertise in Persuasion, History,and Athletics.
A Warblade who can attack the strands of reality to create air blasts and planar gates.
A Marksmen who can craft and shoot arrows with masterwork, alchemical, and/or magical arrowheads.

Better martial classes was option 2 on my solution post upthread.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I'm in the camp that thinks more magic items is the simplest solution. Not pluses on weapons and armor, that just gives characters another hurdle to jump through to keep up with the monsters. I mean utility items. Any time a full caster has a spell that completely throws the exploration/social pillars out of whack, sprinkle some items around that do the same thing, or something similar enough that it gives the same capability to non-casters. Then you can balance for an adventure and a setting where any party can reliably do whatever that special magic thing is, if they're high enough level. Magic in Dungeons and Dragons is reliable, ubiquitous, safe, and predictable. Lean into that. The wizard can still Fly or Comprehend Languages without needing to use an item, and that's useful. It's just not so useful that the wizard is playing chess while the fighter and the rogue are playing checkers.

adding onto this, i think martials ought to have more attunement slots, like the artificer, and with a note somewhere that explicitly states 'a martial of X level should have Y-Z number of magic items of A-B rarity'

 

[billd91]

You could always remove non-combat spells from spell slot casting, make them rituals, and give everyone access to ritual magic. Switch casters to mana instead of slots. Give non-casters energy as a resource and balance those against each other.

I would argue that helps full casters, a lot. Rituals are kind of cool, in their way, but making sure that highly valued non-combat spells aren’t rituals is an important trade off in the game. Consider, for example, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion. It’s a pretty big step up in adventuring camp safety as a 7th level spell. You‘d figure it would make a great ritual. But if the wizard wants to use it, it expends the only 7th level spot he has for the day until 20th level. That means it competes with other attractive spells like force cage and teleport. And that makes it a tough choice for the 13th+ level caster… as it should be.

 

[billd91]

adding onto this, i think martials ought to have more attunement slots, like the artificer, and with a note somewhere that explicitly states 'a martial of X level should have Y-Z number of magic items of A-B rarity'

That would be one of my suggestions. I was thinking non-casters get 5 slots, partial casters get 4 (ranger, paladin, eldritch knight, arcane trickster), full casters get 3.

Alternatively, martial types (including half casters) are forgiven one weapon slot and one armor slot cost for attunement (they still attune but it doesn’t cost a slot). That way, they can upgrade to the fancy magic weapons and armor that do require attunement and currently crowd out their other items.

 

[Minigiant]

adding onto this, i think martials ought to have more attunement slots, like the artificer, and with a note somewhere that explicitly states 'a martial of X level should have Y-Z number of magic items of A-B rarity'

Ye old Shadowrun Essense

 

[Micah Sweet]

adding onto this, i think martials ought to have more attunement slots, like the artificer, and with a note somewhere that explicitly states 'a martial of X level should have Y-Z number of magic items of A-B rarity'

Perhaps with a note that attuning oneself to magic in such a way as to allow spellcasting reduces one's ability to attune to other sources of magic.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I hit up on this idea a few minutes ago, so I haven't had much time to think about it. However, I think that attunement may disproportionately impact martials, and one possible solution could be to remove attunement from most martial oriented items.

Some background. As a result of this thread, I've been thinking a lot about how martials, even dating back all the way to the origins of the game, were kind of wuxia/superhero. It was simply silo'd into magic items.

Some examples. Boots of Springing and Striding that allow you to move and leap like a character from a wuxia film, doubling your movement and allowing leaps 15' high and 30' long. Or a Sword of Sharpness/Vorpal Sword, which could decapitate an opponent in a single strike (if you rolled well). Or the Hammer of Thunderbolts which, if paired with Gauntlets of Ogre Power and a Girdle of Giant Strength would basically make you Thor (more on this later). I could go one for pages, but hopefully you see what I'm saying.

For anyone who might not be aware, the original magic item tables were significantly weighted towards martial items. It was part of the balance of the game. Martial characters needed to have certain magical gear, without which they could be rendered largely impotent. For example, there were quite a number of monsters that couldn't be harmed unless you had a +x quality weapon, or otherwise used magic. I don't recall resistance being a thing back then; it was pretty much all or nothing in most cases. The magic items tables made it so that that finding such gear was likely, and finding gear for casters was relatively unlikely. There was a certain degree of 'easy come, easy go' mentality, in that there were many ways in which magic items could be destroyed, but by and large they were meant to be acquired and martials were meant to have the lion's share.

In 3e, wealth by level was introduced, wherein all characters were expected by the system to have a certain amount of magical gear. This meant that martials no longer got the lion's share of the magical gear, and that everyone was expected to have (presumably) equitable magic gear. In my opinion, this was one of the biggest buffs that casters received in any addition, and from what I can tell it flew under the radar for a lot of people. It also lead to what has been termed the Christmas Tree effect, where high level characters would be blinged out in magic gear, from head to toe.

Bear with me, we've almost come full circle to my opening statement. 5e, as best as I can determine, retained the idea that everyone gets magic items, but reined in the Christmas Tree effect by only allowing 3 attunement slots. Casters are far less reliant than martials on magic items, having spells that allow them to make up for deficiencies (they can also make up for martial deficiencies).

I was looking at the Hammer of Thunderbolts in the 5e DMG, and I realized that in order to attune to it you need to use all 3 of your attunement slots! One for the Hammer, one for the Belt of Giant Strength, and one for Gauntlets of Ogre Power. That leaves no room for attuned items that address the martial's deficiencies, such as Boots of Springing and Striding, or Winged Boots. And this lead me to realize that attunement really holds martials back, because high level martials need magic items to compete on the same field as casters. A melee martial with no magic that allows them to fly is going to be ineffective against flying opponents. A melee martial with no magic is going to be useless against monsters with immunity to non-magical weapons. So on and so forth.

As such, I think one way to improve martials would be to significantly increase or even remove the attunement limit for martial characters. As I've said before, siloing effectiveness for certain classes into magic items is not my preference. I would prefer to have it baked in to the class itself. But, that aside, I'm currently of the opinion that attunement limits martials a lot more than it limits casters.

 

[billd91]

In 3e, wealth by level was introduced, wherein all characters were expected by the system to have a certain amount of magical gear. This meant that martials no longer got the lion's share of the magical gear, and that everyone was expected to have (presumably) equitable magic gear. In my opinion, this was one of the biggest buffs that casters received in any addition, and from what I can tell it flew under the radar for a lot of people. It also lead to what has been termed the Christmas Tree effect, where high level characters would be blinged out in magic gear, from head to toe.

I do not believe it is possible to overstate how much 3e’s magic item economy (expected wealth, item creation, item selling) affected the game and how it is played. The impact was enormous.