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Mostly agreed.

EDIT:

Ok, now that I'm awake...

I like the progression of die. Starting Level 1 players at 2d4s isn't a huge damage increase over 1d6, but it gets players used to choosing b/w offense and defense and playing around with maneuver combinations (I personally am looking forward to combining Knockback and Prone to play Goblin Croquet!).

In terms of special maneuvers, I think creating some higher-level attack maneuvers that do multiple [W] damage and/or damage multiple targets (in the equivalent of a close burst, natch) can be easily balanced by having the maneuver either wholly or mostly eat your dice pool for that round, so that players still have to balance the big flashy hit vs. defense. I also think that you can also create higher-level defense/tanking maneuvers that either wholly or mostly eat your dice in return for cancelling alll damage against an ally or allowing you to move multiple enemies around the map (an AOE Push/Shieldbash kind of thing). It's a good solution for scaling Combat Superiority without going hog-wild on dice progression.

In terms of variety, I think starting the Level 1 Fighter with Deadly Strike/Parry, three Fighting Style Maneuvers, and Tactical Strike would be fine, giving beginning players quite a few variables to experiment with. I'd also suggest that we need to keep a weather eye on improving maneuvers vs. new high-level maneuvers. We don't want bloat, and a lot of the maneuvers we've seen automatically scale as you level through the dice mechanic. 

If we want to look at exact comparisons take Stinking cloud for just 1 round. It hits around 20-25 targets (more likely 10 on average). It deals 2d10 damage to each target.

To be equal CS needs to allow the fighter at 5th level to hit 10+ targets for an additional 2d10 damage over the course of the battle (which will likely be 4-6 rounds).

So at 5th level if you gave the fighter 2d10 CS dice and had a power that allowed adding 2d10 to each attack it would stack up to the Wizard casting 1 spell.

Now at 5th level the Wizard will likely be casting 2-3 dailies per combat with the expected 4 encounter day.

So if we examine 3 daily spells that a 5th level Wizard is likely to cast during any given encounter we can start to see what the fighter needs to compare with.

We will take one 1st level spell, one 2nd level spell, and one 3rd level spell.

So we end up with:
Burning hands - around 6 targets for 4d4 damage save for half. Average damage to each target with 60% save failure is around 8 damage average per target.

Sunburst - around 10 targets for 1d8 + blind save for half damage and no blind, with the DC for the save we are looking at around 6 targets for 1d4 with no blind so if we average this out its closer to 6 targets taking 3.5 average damage and being blinded.

Fireball - around 40+ targets for 5d6 save for half we would get about a 60% failed save ratio. Lets half the targets for average due to there never being 40 creatures that bunch up for a fireball. So we are talking 20 targets taking 21 average or 10 on a save so 16.6 average damage to 20 targets.

So by level 5 the fighter needs to be able to hit 6 targets for 8 average damage, 6 targets for 3.5 average damage as well as blinded, and finally 20 targets for around 16.6 damage.

If we average the damage we get around 11.79 damage on each target so 32 targets for 11.79 damage over the course of 4-6 rounds. with 6 blinded.

To get 11.79 average damage we need something like 2d10 for CS dice at level 5 each round.

Now hitting that many targets is going to require some interesting maneuvers like maneuvers that allow you to take a full round action (move and standard action) to run past as many enemies as you can and hit each one.

An at level average encounter is 14 Dark Adepts which means the fighter will have to double up on damage for each target. So we are looking at the ability to deal 23.5 average damage to each dark adept over the course of the encounter without resorting to the basic attacks (as the Wizards Minor spells are also not accounted for).

This means that the fighter needs to hit every Dark Adept every other round to keep up with the Wizard. We can mitigate this by upping the damage to 4d10 which means the fighter only needs to hit each Dark Adept about once per fight. Hitting 3.5 Dark Adepts per round.

So we need to up the CS dice to 4d10 and allow multiple target Maneuvers at level 5.

I suggest something along the lines of:

Charging Slash - for 4 CS dice the fighter may move up to their speed and make an attack on every enemy whose threatened space they move into. No more than one attack per enemy. On a hit they deal the CS dice they expended worth of damage. The first target hit each round with this Maneuver must make a dexterity save or be blinded for 1d4 rounds.

Aug 15, 2012 -- 12:35AM, TheOneWhoCallCrow wrote:

A simple fighter done 3.5e style with 18 str. 

1lv: 2d6+6= 13 average damage. Way more then 1d4+1. 
2lv: 2d6+8= 15, with weapon focus and mwk sword. He should at least take -1 on power attack.
3lv: 2d6+9= 16, got his first magic weapon. Fireball plus cleave equal encounter over.
4lv 2d6+13= 21, got his specialization feat and taking another -1 on power attack.
5lv 2d6+16= 23, got his first +2 strength item and risking antoher -1 on power attack.

Right now his attack bonus should be +9, with a -3 from power attack for 6 extra damage. That's not including flanking or whatever bonus he get from the fight. 

Now instead of casting fireball, the wizard should be casting haste. Having +10/+10 with an average 23 damage each for 5 rounds, that's not including great cleave he is going to use.

If this fireball was cast against a single creature. The wizard will be only doing 18 average damage on a fail save. With haste, he could buff the fighter for extra 115 damage because of his spell.  

I like doing math. Let the Fighter vs Wizard battle begin! 

We aren't talking about average damage from at-will attacks or minor spells.

We are talking about balancing Combat Superiority with Daily Spellcasting.

If you want you can start another thread for that.

The thing you didn't consider though in your calculations is miss chance. The fighter will miss on average around 40% of the time according to some posters (I haven't done the average AC of all monsters of each level compared to the fighters modified average attack roll, but feel free to do the math and correct me) so we end up with average damage of 7.8 for level 1 for the fighter and 3.5 for the Wizard still the wizard is more about control so if we go with the at-will control spells we get better damage and control effects.

Ray of Frost - 1d6+3 and -10 foot of movment. with a 60% hit chance that's 3.9 average damage + move penalty. I'd say that's about balanced.

Also haste is not in the play test packet so we can't compare.

This is a stricly 5E comparison thread with the new play test packet...

Aug 15, 2012 -- 1:38AM, CarlT wrote:

Aug 14, 2012 -- 11:17PM, lokiare wrote:

Lets deconstruct what a wizard gets each day:

1st Level   - 3 1st level spells
2nd Level  - 4 1st level spells
3rd Level  - 4 1st level spells and 2 2nd level spells
4th Level  - 4 1st level spells and 3 2nd level spells
5th Level - 4 1st level spells and 3 2nd level spells and 2 3rd level spells

etc.

I don't dispute what you say.  In fact - I did some quick and dirty math and found that the 'parity point' between an all damage wizard (Burning Hands - 4 targets each time; Arc Lighting - 2 targets and Fireball - 6 targets) and an all damage fighter (two handed weapon, Deadly Strike and Glancing Blow); assuming enemies save half the time and the fighter hits half the time (this number is low for both - the fighter will hit more often and the creatures will fail their saves more often - but 50% makes a good value for a quick comparison) was 30 rounds.  That is to say - if you had less than 30 rounds of combat per day, under those assumptions the wizard did more damage; if you had more than 30 rounds of combat the fighter did more damage.


That is a much longer day than I expected. 


The problem is - I don't think the solution is to increase the fighter's expertise dice.  Damage inflation is rarely the answer.

The only other option is to redesign Maneuvers to hit many opponents at once though, I don't think many would like that...

Aug 15, 2012 -- 1:38AM, CarlT wrote:

I think one solution is to roll back the wizards added damage to burning hands (Arc Lighting can stay as it is) and reduce the damage from Fireball.  Or decrease their spells per day (they have one more 2nd and one more 3rd than they did in AD&D1st (4 2 1).


Bottom Line: The current iteration of the wizard has more spells than it did in AD&D1st and those spells do either the same damage (fireball) or significantly more damage (as in burning hands).


One way to look at it is:  Burning Hands does around 2 rounds of fighter damage; Arc Lighting does a bit over 1 round of fighter damage and Fireball does around 5.5 rounds of fighter damage. 


In fact - that suggests a rough metric:  What if each spell did around 1 round of fighter damage per level.  By this measure - Burning Hands and Fireball are overpowered and Arc Lighting is actually weak.
   
If this metric could be hit - a 5th level magic user would be close to on par with a Fighter if they had sixteen rounds of combat in a day (not a bad starting point for discussion, imho).   The actual value would be slightly higher because the magic user would be doing his 16 rounds of damage in 9 rounds - but it would be far closer than the current approach.  (I think this actually leads to parity in 18 rounds, not 16 - if I did the math right in my head).

Your math is off here. If the fighter is dealing an average of 12 points of damage TO ONE TARGET if they use their CS dice on damage each round then burning hands is 10 points of damage average to around 6 targets. In other words the fighter needs to have 5 extra rounds just for that one spell. Since we are counting the average damage including basic attacks, then the wizard gets to tack on ray of frost damage (magic missile even without miss chance sucks in comparison) 6.5 * 5 rounds is 32.5 so the Wizard is dealing 60 + 32.5 = 92.5 damage compared to the fighters 60 in the same time frame not counting misses and failed saves. If we up it to say 10 rounds we get 120 from the fighter and 125 from the Wizard so with just 1 daily spell the fight has to have 10 rounds to catch up with the current system. That to me is just not acceptable as by level 5 the Wizard is going to be casting a daily spell every 3rd round or so assuming the play tests suggested 4 encounter day...

Aug 15, 2012 -- 1:38AM, CarlT wrote:

What does this mean: 

First - what is a 'fighter round' of damage.  SInce I am going all damage, I assume fighter does 14 points of damage per round (2d6 for weapon plus 3 for 10 points on a hit, 0 on a miss, average 5; 2d8 for expertise dice, applied every round -deadly strike or glancing blow- average 9).

 

Actually someone mentioned that the fighter can hit on average about 60% of the time in the play test. So 55% of that is normal damage and 5% is maxed out for critical damage. So average damage taking into account miss chance and critical damage would be done like this (Based on the pre-gen dwarven fighter):

40% - miss
55% - 5.5 (weapon) + 3 (ability mod) + 3.5 (CS dice) = 12
5% - Critical 10 + 3 + 6 = 19
So using those percents you get an average of 7.55 damage per round.

A Wizard would get this from burning hands:
40% - half damage 5 * 6 targets = 30
60% - full damage 10 * 6 targets = 60
So using those percents you get an average of 48 damage. Now add in the Minor spell Ray of Frost:
40% - miss
55% - 6.5
5% - Critical 9
Using those we get 4.025 per round used.

So across 10 rounds the fighter gets 75.5 average damage and the Wizard gets 48 (burning hands 1 round) + 36.225 (Ray of Frost 9 rounds) = 84.225. So we need to go a few more rounds to even it out. Lets try 12 rounds:
Fighter - 90.6
Wizard - 92.275

Almost there so lets try 13 rounds:
Fighter - 98.15
Wizard - 96.3

So somewhere between 12 and 13 rounds is what it takes for the fighter to catch up with the Wizard at level 1-2 where the Wizard is going to be casting 1 spell per average combat...

Aug 15, 2012 -- 1:38AM, CarlT wrote:

Thus - a first level spell ought to do around 14 points of damage on average.  That works out to around 18 points for the spell, half on a save.  

For a single target spell - that's a nice bit of damage - say 5d6 (average 17.5; Since this number seems high to those used to earlier editions, I'd probably change it to a smaller value with a status effect.) 

For a cone (average three targets) that means around 6 points per target before save.  The last packet burning hands did 2d4+3 or 8 points - a bit high but not too bad.  You could change it to a spray (the three square's adjacent to one side - which is more like the AD&D version that had flames jet out 3' from the wizard in a 120degree arc)  - this makes two targets more likely and caps the spell at three targets, but gets a bit wonky with diagonals on a grid.    Bottom line - the old burning hands was about right (although for a developing symmetry I like 1d6+3).   You could also up the base damage but remove the half damage (or halve the base damage to three points and remove the save.  An autohit AE spell would be nice).


A second level spell ought to do around 28 points of damage on average.  That works out to around 36 points before save. 

As with the first level spell - this is a ton of damage for a single target spell.  Better to go with a lower damage calculation and add a status effect.  I don't think the game should have 2nd and higher level, damage only spells.
 
For a two target spell (like arc lightnig) it depends on how it's split up.  Arc lighting does 5d6 to one target (half on save) and 2d6 to the second target (nada on save).  That's an average of around 16.5. This is actually low.  Arc lighting should do more damage by this metric.  Alternately - I'd add status effect (because damage inflation is never the answer).  Alternately, the spell could increase the damage of the second bold - if both bolts do the same 5d6, the average damage increases to around 27 points.


For a three target spell (cone or small burst) - the spell should do about 12 points per target.  That's about 2d8 +3.
  

A third level spell ought to do around 42 points of damage.   That's 56 points of damage before the save.

Again - no single target or even double target damage only spells.  Essentially - the minimum area of the spells goes up with level as well - which is a hindrance as much as it is a benefit as it becomes harder and harder to keep allies out of the big spells.


FOr a cone (average three targets) we are looking at  around 18 points of damage.  3d10+3.  (Notice that was L1 1d6+3, L2 2d8+3, L3 3d10+3.  Nice how that worked out...)


For a fireball (big blast) we are looking at around 10 points of damage before the save.  3d6 does this nicely (I haven't looked for a pattern for this size yet - but if a pattern could be found it would add elegance to the system).


Note:  This is a big drop in the fireball - because the fireball is the one that is really throwing the math off.  It is both massive damage and (when used to its best advantage) massive number of targets.


It is the epitome of quadratic wizard.

Thoughts?

Carl


note:  This is a quick and dirty estimate to show how I might try to balance the spells.  I probably won't have time to do the numbers properly until after GenCon.  

Lets take a level 5 Fighter versus a level 5 Wizard in an average 4 encounter day as suggested by the play test:

Fighter:
40% - Miss
55% - 5.5 (Weapon) + 3 (abilitiy mod) + 9 (CS Dice) = 17.5 average per round.
5% - Crit 10 (Weapon) + 3 (ability mod) + 16 (CS Dice) = 29 average per round.
Total average per round: 11.075

Wizard Ray of Frost:
40% - Miss
55% - 6.5
5% - 9
Total average per round: 4.025

Wizard Fireball (Assuming 20 out of the possible 50+ targets):
40% - Half 175
60% - Full 350
Total average for one round: 280

Damage over the course of 12 rounds (Wizard casts 1 3rd level spell and spams ray of frost the rest of the time):
Fighter - 132.9
Wizard - 328.3

Here we have to go way more rounds to catch up lets do 30 rounds:
Fighter - 332.25
Wizard - 396.725

Nope still not enough lets try 40 rounds:
Fighter - 443
Wizard - 436.975

Close but lets go 38 to see what happens:
Fighter - 420.85
Wizard - 428.925

That's pretty close so with one spell the wizard requires the fighter to take 36-38 rounds to catch up. From the look of things a typical combat will last about 4-8 rounds. Now imagine if that same Wizard then casts a first level and second level spell during that combat. We are probably looking at some 90+ rounds to even that out...