As you can probably tell from the title, I'm a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons. I started playing 5th Edition a few years ago and have been hooked ever since. I played in many campaigns, became a DM, and eventually started writing my own homebrews! But, it is always nice to come back to the basics and look at official material. All the classes from Artificer to Wizard are so iconic, and to revisit ones I have already played as, or played alongside, with new material being released is fantastic.
I have absolutely been loving where Wizards of the Coast has been taking the game in terms of content. Lineages instead of traditional races from Van Richten's, the new rules and optional class features from Tasha's have been by far some of the greatest changes yet, and with Travelers of the Multiverse on the horizon, there are just so many great things to look forward to. But of course, every great game has its flaws, and that is what I am going to be talking about.
In my time playing, I have noticed a staggering gap in potential between martial classes (barbarians, fighters, monks, etc.) and casters. Primarily full casters (bard, cleric, druid, etc.), ones who have access to 9th level spell slots (the highest), so unless stated otherwise, assume I mean full casters when they are mentioned. In this, essay I guess it can be called, I will be discussing this comparison in the context of combat, utility, and roleplay, and will be making separate posts for each.
Sword or Sorcery?...Sorcery...Always Sorcery
To start off, let us begin with combat, as that is mostly raw numbers. From levels 1 to around 7, martials and casters are relatively on par in this category. Seeing as how at this point, casters would have a single 4th level spell slot as their highest, and the martials will likely have at least one uncommon magic item to give a slight boost to their damage. However, once level 8 is reached, I could argue that there is often no reason to play a martial class, and this is coming from someone who much prefers martials over casters.
The raw numbers casters can put out without any help from magic items or ally abilities is just crazy. Upcasted moonbeam or inflict wounds, base level fireball, there are so many spells that simply dwarf anything a martial class can do on there own. And that is not even acknowledging healing yet. Clerics, Druids, and Divine Soul Sorcerers, all have the capabilities to greatly heal one or many allies on one turn, and then turn around and hit for mind boggling damage the very next, without even expending many of their resources.
Tired Yet? I can go all day!
Speaking of which: resources. Wow, is this not even close to fair. The best example I can give for this point is the monk class, with its Ki Points. Should a monk, at any level really, use everything at their disposal when possible, they will burn through all their Ki in two turns. Three if it is a very high level Monk. Then you have casters. Casters can go for several rounds without even being close to finished. Spell slots are so much more abundant for what they are capable of being used for. Now, I have heard many times that the way this is balanced is how a Monk will "never run out of punches." While that is true, if they are out of Ki Points or do not have enough to activate their special abilities, those punches are not going to be worth much. Whereas with casters, even if they exhaust their spell slots down to just 1st-3rd level, there is still so much more they can do with those compared to the monk, and that is not even taking into consideration cantrips and the class/subclass abilities that casters get on top of their spell slots.
Now, once a caster does run out of spell slots, then they are in trouble. But, there two important things to remember when discussing that. Firstly, if you are in a combat scenario in which you completely run out of spell slots, and you are above level 4, you should probably be running anyway. Secondly, and most importantly, every campaign I have been a part of, heard stories about, or seen played live, 9/10 a long rest is taken immediately before and after combat. So, unless your DM is trying to make the campaign extremely challenging, this point is moot, because everyone in the party will have all their resources restored and casters will almost never be out of spell slots.
So when it comes to slaying dragons, the classic band of knights will likely be burned to a crisp if not very well prepared. Whereas the frail old group of wizards could easily turn it to dust if planned correctly. Or they could just turn it into a sheep and banish it to the shadow realm.
Thumbnail: Art by Artur Mosca on ArtStation
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