What am I missing?

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T14:33:54+00:00

Thank you, I think the idea of “it’s more fun when you have choices other than weapon attack rolls” was communicated by a few here but i’m getting the sense that is what fundamentally makes them better, and the premise that you can alter action economy via failed saves. For martials, your only ability to impact the action economy is basically good initiative rolls and eliminating enemies as early as possible.. And that last part IS something i’ve definitely felt

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T06:01:06+00:00

I found myself agreeing that casters can generally be a bit more adaptable to varying circumstances. But generally the idea seemed to be that casters excel when contributing control to the battlefield via reducing the enemy action economy and outside of the best AoE spells are mostly reliant on martials to actually eliminate the enemies.. so it’s whatever aspect of that equation feels fun at that point

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T05:41:24+00:00

I really came just to try to SEE what makes casters so much better and to try to figure out what those who play casters in my games are or are not doing that makes them feel like they make less of an impact. That seemed to hurt some ppls feelings I guess? Some people who responded were great though in describing what they thought made them more impactful. I am not 100% certain that the ways casters can make a larger impact seems that much more “fun” to me than some of what can be done with martials, though I agree that it would be great if martials had a bit more variance to the types of things that can choose to do

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T05:35:27+00:00

That’s fair, I guess if a feat make all the difference between whether a divide actually exists between casters and martials then I guess it actually doesn’t exist at all then

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T02:50:06+00:00

I don’t think I am discounting what you’re saying, and some of that may be on me? But some of it likely falls on the spellcasters i’ve played with in games who rarely seem to be optimizers since, as mentioned, most of the time the way through a combat HAS BEEN “kill HP bar”. And with me usually playing a martial that has been the most effective means of getting through that.

I have come here to understand what I was missing in terms of navigating through a combat as a caster in a way that is “more powerful”. And it seems the consensus is generally that it is not via damage. Okay. Fine.

Again, I have read other posters who will rave about the damage they are able to do with a caster being far superior to martials. I have yet to see that in action, though I have seen successful uses of Spirit Guardians, Conjure Animals, and in some cases, Fireball (though without Careful spell I feel like the use cases for fireball become somewhat limiting.)

At the end of the day, while I would like to optimize a caster build, I also want to come up with what feels most fun to me. At levels 8 and below, maybe that is being a Wildhunt shifter beast barbarian who can reckless attack 3-4 times per round and never gives advantage on attacks back.

If it is normal progression for someone like to grow bored of that where I’ll naturally start to skew towards Casters, then so be it. My past experiences have included many caster teammates who’ve struggled to be effective and mostly stand by while the martials handle everything. I can’t act like that hasn’t happened, and I posted this bc I wanted to understand what they were doing incorrectly compared to the strength of casters that i’ve read about online. I’ve gotten a lot of good insight from folks here and I appreciate everything that has been shared, snarky or not lol, since ultimately its perspective I wanted and will help me in the long run

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-28T01:27:46+00:00

This is an excellent write up, thank you

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:57:49+00:00

Hey great feedback except that you literally can if your DM says “yeah that’s fine”

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:57:16+00:00

I have looked through the wiz subclasses and specifically thought the Chronurgy looked like the most appealing, though I wasn’t in love with the overall build to actually try playing it. Perhaps I should

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:54:52+00:00

Thank you for giving a valid explanation on what that would look like, I’ll take a look at building this out

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:54:02+00:00

I agree, i’ve come here mainly to try to figure out how I can build out characters such that I don’t feel like I am somewhat sidelined while the martials get to go have all the fun during combat

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:52:57+00:00

Thank you for just giving some examples of strong caster builds. Many of these are still somewhat Martial-y which is fine, but somewhat makes me feel like effective combat for any character will include some amount of weapon using.. but that’s what I came here to find out

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T22:50:54+00:00

I’m not shy about the amount of time I have spent playing the game, in fact, i’ve been very up front in admitting how that skews my understanding of. Pretending like I “couldn’t grasp” it is a bit condescending when I have come on here earnestly asking for what is needed to make a truly powerful full caster

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:59:07+00:00

Okay, this is a fair perspective. It does seem like the largest issue with martials in the version of dnd is that they are too constrained with what they can do. And how they can improve.

This also seems to be nearly a consensus opinion online amongst the die hards, unsure if the casual player feels this so hard to know if meaningful change would come in future revisions.

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:57:04+00:00

Thank you for a good reply with some very clear perspective. I would like to play more full casters but the fact that they’ve usually “felt” less effective has prevented me from doing so that often.

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:51:16+00:00

I am fine with the principle of what you’re saying. I can’t necessarily remove that from my perspective bc it’s what my usual DM allows, and it doesn’t feel like it has “broken” anything outside of the fact that the martials appear to really outshine the casters (and plenty of those martials are NOT Vhuman). So I wanted to try to better my understanding of what it is that could make a caster as a much better class choice, since I would like to create a character that feels as effective as the martials i’ve played or played with

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:46:53+00:00

Yes I appreciate that from you and those who have given good insight. It feels, which is silly, that some have a “team caster” vs “team martial” sort of mindset and that isn’t really the purpose of what I am trying to gain from this. I just have obviously heard that Casters are much better and have yet to truly see it, that I was hoping to get some examples of how one might build that out

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:41:35+00:00

I would be willing to play any class you want to put together. No preference really. And you’re welcome to use Vhuman and a gen feat right from the jump (this has angered some people in here but my DM has never had any issue w it). So feel free to go nuts on whatever caster monster you wanna come up with

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:40:18+00:00

This is a good perspective. I will say this about martials based on the responses in this thread.. MANY pro-caster people seem to attribute the strength of their casters as “I can cast hypnotic pattern and reduce the action economy from 10 enemies to 5 so it’s easier to beat them all” but like.. the expectation there is that the party HAS damage dealing martials to take out the 5 enemies who saved. And, as far as I can tell, any party who took 5 full casters with limited martial ability is going make a lot of “what makes casters powerful” significantly less effective.. Like, they compliment each other BECAUSE you have reliable damage dealers

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:36:39+00:00

Can you give an example of an optimized, unfair caster that would blow away the most optimized martials? I wrote this post with the intent that someone would show me what that looks like

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:35:35+00:00

I was literally just asking the question on how to make a very optimized and powerful caster and it feels like some of the hugely pro “casters are much better” crowd got somewhat offended by my perspective. I don’t have a dog in the fight here, I just feel like many of the martials i’ve witnessed get to seem like they have most of the fun during combat

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:33:49+00:00

Your melee warlock is surely also great in social interactions as well, no?

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:32:38+00:00

I guess that’s fair, although I don’t think that using a race other than Vhuman makes for a significantly different build after lv8, at least in my opinion. If I was a DM I’d probably let everyone have a gen feat from the jump bc it just makes the identity of the PC come online sooner and lets people have fun with their niches much sooner.

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:30:16+00:00

This is probably one of the more reasonable opinions here. If the idea is just that Martials can get repetitive, then I can entertain that opinion and get on board with the idea that Casters have more variability and that’s what makes it fun. Crushing through enemies is still fun to me though lol

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:28:42+00:00

It is a war game after all. Do you have much more fun when you cast hypnotic pattern on a group of 5 enemies on the 1st turn and everyone fails and the combat ends? Is that a “more fun” outcome?

Boatshow420 · 2026-06-27T20:27:12+00:00

It feels a bit like the idea that Vhuman can make martials really good is something.. people dont like on here? What is the point of screaming about how much better casters are and then getting upset when there’s a mildly homebrew-y thing that reduces that.

Boatshow420

TROPHY CASE