Page 1 of 2

Martial/Caster Disparity Bingo Card

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:11 am
by Libertad
Image

Found this on a gaming Discord. Figured it can be a useful tool when reading online debates.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:20 am
by Mistborn
Did someone say "fighter thread"?

'cause I think I just heard someone say "fighter thread".

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:24 am
by nockermensch
Reporting for duty.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:31 am
by The Adventurer's Almanac
Weeaboo fightan is perfectly acceptable and should be emulated in most forms of heroic fantasy unless you want to also gimp mages and ensure nobody has any fun.
I accept all challengers.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:34 am
by Grek
Narrow casters narrow casters narrow casters n a r r o w c a s t e r s .

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:40 am
by MGuy
A very useful party game. Fun for the whole family.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 12:49 am
by Zaranthan
We need a pithy way to say "getting hit with a sword ruins your spell, but doesn't stop you from swinging your own sword".

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 2:43 am
by Kaelik
While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 3:20 am
by The Adventurer's Almanac
Sounds like Fate, with its weird sword and number wizards and shit.
Uh, the anime and money-stealing phone app, not the tabletop game.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 3:50 am
by JigokuBosatsu
ethergaunts

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 4:32 am
by Libertad
Kaelik wrote:While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.
The 2007s only truly ended with the advent of Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 6:55 am
by phlapjackage
Kaelik wrote:While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.
All I heard was "Earthdawn"

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 7:00 am
by Dogbert
Mistborn wrote:Did someone say "fighter thread"?

'cause I think I just heard someone say "fighter thread".
Image

P.S: I'm totally stealing this bingo idea for a comic.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 2:35 pm
by Zaranthan
Kaelik wrote:While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.
I once tried to run a game of Shadowrun where the Magician, Magical Adept, Adept, and Technomancer qualities were free and mandatory. Nobody felt small in the pants, but dear lord so many spirits...

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 2:37 pm
by OgreBattle
So in this decade how do current edition D&D players talk about lvl 20 fighters matching wizards, is it the same or somehow different now

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 4:53 pm
by merc1138
OgreBattle wrote:So in this decade how do current edition D&D players talk about lvl 20 fighters matching wizards, is it the same or somehow different now
The reality is, they still don't come close and it's really worse due to the lack of options for magic items and abilities to make up for it. However the general justifications of how not being able to buy items is a good thing, is frankly half the bingo chart.

Things I've seen stated about 5e somehow balancing martial and caster classes:

"healing on short rests helps make up for fighters taking damage"
"it's more realistic"
"low magic campaigns are better anyway"
"if the players can't buy whatever they want, the casters can't load up on magic items"
"fighters and barbarians are tougher than squishy casters"
"it's a cooperative game anyway"

Which go figure, match up to a pretty good portion of the bingo sheet.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 7:30 pm
by merxa
5e casters have more restrictions and there are generally more counter measures (although the significant counter measures all involve magic). Overall action economy hurts 5e casters more, in the sense that there are fewer spells that can just 'win' an encounter against many enemies, so a PC wizard has a much harder time soloing the adventure.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 8:25 pm
by Pedantic
merxa wrote:5e casters have more restrictions and there are generally more counter measures (although the significant counter measures all involve magic). Overall action economy hurts 5e casters more, in the sense that there are fewer spells that can just 'win' an encounter against many enemies, so a PC wizard has a much harder time soloing the adventure.
Which is to say, player agency has to reach a high enough threshold for anyone to care about measuring the range of values in the first place.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 8:38 pm
by The Adventurer's Almanac
Concentration is a kick in the balls, too.

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 9:17 pm
by Zaranthan
The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:Concentration is a kick in the balls, too.
Oh, definitely. I'm not a fan of most OSR features, but "spells take effect at the beginning of your next turn, and if you get hit with a stick before then your spell goes poof" actually seems like a reasonable balance point.

Heck, if nothing else it would justify the array of defenses high level casters use to render themselves immune to swords. Because if you get PAST all those defenses, they're commoners.

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 12:52 am
by WiserOdin032402
I understand nerfing spellcasters but I find 5e went a bit overkill on the 'normal' problem spells that delete combats and left all the out of combat utility alone. So now the only way for spellcasters to deal with combat is direct damage (Fireball and the like) or the standard fare of no save spells (think like wall of force or forcecage).

However they ripped out the skill system on top of that up to and including UMD meaning that spellcasters have the only guaranteed out of combat utility effects. Bringing us right back to square one with spellcasters being better than you. Oh and both Cleric and Druid are still really good at dealing direct damage so the problem never really got solved.

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 1:00 am
by The Adventurer's Almanac
Hey, Firebolt's a pretty badass cantrip once you hit level 5. I never even felt the need for other damaging spells.

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 5:11 am
by hyzmarca
phlapjackage wrote:
Kaelik wrote:While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.
All I heard was "Earthdawn"
Just go Final Fantasy VII, everyone is a fighter but they also have Materia slots.

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 2:19 am
by phlapjackage
hyzmarca wrote:
phlapjackage wrote:
Kaelik wrote:While we are living in 2007 I'll add that everyone should have magic.

Everyone's a wizard.
All I heard was "Earthdawn"
Just go Final Fantasy VII, everyone is a fighter but they also have Materia slots.
Yeah true - JRPGs in general seem to do a good job of lessening/eliminating this problem.

Posted: Fri May 15, 2020 4:10 am
by The Adventurer's Almanac
JRPGs are typically little more than shallow combat simulators, though. Even the good ones tend to be complex combat simulators.