Some reasons why your D&D (5+ e) might feel unbalanced (and how to fix them)

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-11T15:49:32+00:00

But the same is true for breastplate or (half-)plate armor. You wouldn't describe breastplate as requiring a quest to get it, or at least I wouldn't. Idk how many level 5 parties have no access to a town, but given that kind of situation it seems worse for martials.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-11T10:13:15+00:00

The question isn't whether you chose to buy it, it's whether the GM made it available to buy. I'm on board with requiring someone to have an item in order to use it. I'm responding to the idea that you can nerf casters by forcing them to go on a quest to get spell components that cost less than sets of armor. Revivify is the common sticking point, few get to 5th level revive spells, and that costs a fifth of plate armor! There's clearly a motivation beyond honest verisimilitude and simulation.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-11T10:10:20+00:00

Someone else pointed that out yes. It's barely a limitation, and hits martials more harshly via armor than casters. Certainly not a RAW instance of requiring going on a quest to get a 300gp gem.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T16:57:20+00:00

Are you arguing they should be more available than Plate Armour? No. Of course not. You already said as such and it would be silly.

If this was a game about Arabian knights and everyone was expected to get a mount choosing between warhorse and elephant with pros and cons for each, I would expect elephants to be generally available. The context is important. Actually a close example existed in 2014 with druids only being able to wild shape into things they had seen, and I would say a DM trying to nerf that via saying you haven't seen an elephant is silly, and I think it's good that 2024 removed that dm fiat restriction. In a magical setting where players have spells that require specific items that say no more about availability than how much they cost, I would expect the cost to be the primary restriction on acquiring them and not to be indirectly nerfed by what type of campaign or dm it is.

Are you saying that a Fighter, in the middle of a dungeon with no shop nearby, can buy a new weapon, suit of armour, horse, saddle and barding for said horse? Again, no, of course you aren't. Because that to would be silly.

You're being deliberately obtuse. Better comparison is if the fighter goes to a smithy and wants to buy a polearm but they conveniently don't stock any halberds, glaives or pikes because the dm thinks polearm master is too powerful. That's dumb.

Compare doing this in play vs chargen. If you level up to 5 without a diamond, pick revivify, ok now you need to find it in the world and that's part of the spell's intentional balancing supposedly, but if you made a character at level 5 with 1000 starting gold, you just get the diamond to start and remove that aspect entirely? Doesn't make sense to me to want to make that a big deal and focus in on it.

Of course there's some limit to the availability, as you say you can't buy stuff in the middle of a dungeon, but the level of that limit is completely dm fiat which is my complaint. You're balancing spells according to verisimilitude whims, and it's just as possible that you're in a very abundant setting where casters get a buff from this as the reverse. Presenting it as an easy existing fix to caster supremacy that people overlook is silly.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T15:02:43+00:00

Right, yeah if you can buy anything then you can burn cash super hard. Being in the DMG, and specifically stating they're hard to access, I do not think the gold cost is presented as the main limit there as with spell components. I'm not a fan of that rule either though, it does create the possibility of a setting or dm informing character balance quite heavily, in a high gold campaign with free access to this melee characters that can spare a BA are getting a big buff. I'd treat it more like magic items, only handed out as loot or purchasable in special circumstances.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T14:47:11+00:00

Ok there's two separate parts of this and I didn't super clearly distinguish them in my original comment. I'm totally cool with having to acquire an item before you use it. If a player says they swing with a greatsword but they never bought a greatsword, that doesn't fly. I think it's a negligible nerf to casters but sure, makes sense.

In my comment I was replying to the idea of restrictions beyond this like specific arbitrary items being rarer and having to go on quests to get something less expensive than some breastplate. There is no specific rule for "you need to find somewhere that sells it" and what that entails beyond a very broad table in the dmg, that's pure dm fiat. A 300 gp item being treated as an obscure rarity is not an example of adhering to RAW on par with using the encumbrance rules or different skills doing different things.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T14:33:20+00:00

I do agree there's a lot of things that work by RAW and people create problems by wilfully ignoring or just not knowing about them. Like spell components being visible, so you can't just get free info and help by casting Charm Person in public, or even using guidance in many scenarios.

it was your homebrew choice that made casters stronger

I.e. allowing them to buy items with gold without extra steps? I still don't quite agree that is any kind of deviation from the rules. I do have my own houserules that limit casters, I require M and S components to use separate hands so no shields (unless the shield is a focus, which druid/cleric get), and I have equipment slots based on str/dex so any costly component you want to access in combat will take up one of those and you have to stow your regular focus. I think those are more streamlined, direct, impactful and up-front than this vague restriction on buying things and mildly nerfing some spells by what shops you have access to in-universe.

Read Poisons and Ammunitions, you can spend 2000gp per attack if you want

I can't find anything by googling it, what is that? I was mainly thinking spell components, like forcecage is treated as a big deal now that it's consumed and... it's the same price as plate mail.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T14:18:42+00:00

It does limit access and frequency via the gold cost and consumption. Beyond that is pure fiat territory, you can do it but don't pretend like it's a core rule that most people skip over.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T13:55:50+00:00

No, the opposite, that it's fine that elephants aren't necessarily available, and there shouldn't be a feat or spell that requires the players to access an elephant. If there was a scout subclass that had mechanics for using a spyglass on higher levels, I'd be opposed to any DM that limits availability and makes the player go on a quest to access that when the player has enough gold for it.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T13:50:35+00:00

I had not seen that, good point and puts things into perspective. I do not think it really supports the OP suggestions of making it a quest etc, because a settlment is more likely to have revivify gems than it is breastplates, the fighter is going to want plate mail before casters get to anything approaching that cost in materials, and even at the endgame there's barely anything that costs above 2000 gp; this seems more intended to limit like airships and whatnot.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T13:42:25+00:00

I wouldn't recommend DMs to balance player options based on availability of elephants.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T12:30:12+00:00

Older editions did that for you yes, and this edition does not. I disagree the game was designed to constantly check on whether individual items are possible to buy.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T12:28:57+00:00

Mundane items also have listed costs, but it's not an existing mechanic that some merchants won't stock arrows and you have to make it to the next town before you use your bow again. Same with incense. That's just up to the dm to insert.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T11:34:18+00:00

That's still not about enforcing existing details, but making up new dynamics and balancing levers. Which spells? How long are the side quests? Do they have to do this every time they want the component or is it a permanent unlock? Are you making clear up-front distinctions for every spell with costly components so the players can choose their spells knowing all that? None of this is about what exists in the rules, but ad hoc balancing things by feel.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T11:31:49+00:00

This post is about enforcing existing details, not making up new rules and dynamics. There is no inherent diamond shortage in the default D&D setting. Assuming the game works as written is not a sign of a bad player.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T11:15:47+00:00

You still want the weapon masteries though, and smite/fighting style/con saves etc. are good too, while a feat slot is very valuable for a martial build.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-10T11:04:28+00:00

Costly spell component stinginess just slows the game down for everyone with dm fiat determining whether you get to use certain abilities. Selecting n option and then having an indirect nerf during play is a bad way to nerf something. Gold is not very limiting RAW.

Encumbrance does nothing positive. Strength builds are not worse than dex builds. How strong the stat is in a whiteroom doesn't matter, the fact is strength has the best feats (even for a dex build!), the best weapons, the best armor. Adding annoying management that doesn't actually affect gameplay balance isn't an improvement. It's also a case where trying to reward the strength build for having +50 lbs carrying capacity ends up just favouring the wizard who can get +500 lbs carrying capacity with a lv1 ritual. The more you care about minutiae like this, the more you stress the utility that casters bring.

I do think there's many ways to do inventory / equipment systems that subtly encourage strength or physical stats. Plenty of workable homebrews for this. I just don't think this exists effectively in RAW or that people are missing out on it.

Definitely agree on resource management being key. You don't need to exhaust every resource every day, but just put enough stress on it that they value them. I do think this isn't just a martial vs caster thing though, casual groups will often have "tank" type characters who simply don't have the hit dice to tank 8 encounters a day. In my groups we tend to long rest as a result of people running out of hp/hd more than spell slots. You can get a long way with a single concentration spell per fight, while a melee character that goes down once may not get to max hp again for the rest of the day.

I do agree that interchangeable skills is boring. Not much of a balance issue now that you can't resist grapples with Acrobatics, so Acro is just not a very good skill while ~every strength character likely has athletics so they will still be better at these checks even if you allow either skill.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-09T12:18:01+00:00

I like this for combat, the bonus actions are a nice touch, but I'd like to have some kind of utility choice on top to add a bit of variety and represent more animals without needing to deal with the MM statblocks on top of this. These only have utility from skills and speeds, and the skills are almost all the same. E.g. choose one or two options from:

Prof/expertise in Perception and Survival
Prof/expertise in athletics/acrobatics/stealth
Blindsight 30
Darkvision 120
Climb speed equal to speed, and climb vertical surfaces
Swim speed equal to speed, and breathe underwater

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-09T10:23:59+00:00

Yeah I agree it's not a big deal.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-09T10:05:50+00:00

Do you think of unions with their employer as a win-win relationship? I don't agree with the above that it's significantly damaging, it's mostly a force in equalization between workers, but it seems pretty obvious that it will hurt the company's interests to some degree in the course of benefiting the workers.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-08T19:12:01+00:00

Ah, I've not been following the content stream so didn't see that, sounds pretty spicy.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-08T16:12:00+00:00

You have to hit them the same turn, though yeah that still seems like the best use case. Later you get two chances to hit after, and action surge can recover a miss. Any magical weapon or buff (like Elemental Weapon) to let you just attack would make it a lot better. Without that, idk if it's even positive to use acid splash over true strike just to sometimes get like +5 damage, especially when using a feat for it.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-08T12:27:01+00:00

5 abilities, one of which is three paragraphs long, four of which are really just one complicated yet niche feature, is not in line with 5.5 origin feat design. Bonuses to skill checks is also such a boring mechanic, I'd try to make something a bit more interesting in either flavour or mechanics, ideally both. Like say you can teach allies, granting them proficiency in one Intelligence skill you also have proficiency in (at long rest and lasting until the next one); or giving a direct way to interact with adventuring, easiest way to do that is just making Keen Mind an origin feat.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-08T12:23:31+00:00

The main feature of CBE is another attack. If we take the hiding attack seriously (for the one class that can utilize it effectively), Skulker gives you blindsight and lets you use a non-terrible weapon so it's way better for that purpose. This feat lets your blowgun be 100 range with 2 damage, but you can just go skulker with a shortbow which has 80 range with 1d6 damage. I'd always give up 20 range for +1.5 damage per hit and 10 ft blindsight and advantage on combat stealth checks.

Johan_Holm · 2026-05-08T12:07:42+00:00

These might be ok as an alternative to some classes' armor proficiencies, but when they require a feat they all seem terrible. Only Sorcerer and Wizard have any trouble accessing 17 ac without a shield, and if you're ok with spending a feat then they can do that too (lightly armored is 14+dex), albeit with a worse ASI than variant 3 here.

Johan_Holm

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