Mystic Arts Monk vs. Wyvern

 So, this is going to be a little tricky because while the presumably final version of the subclass is locked, and the YouTube channel Insight Check has a break-down of it, I cannot seem to find a written version of the subclass. For readers, that won't be a big deal, but for me it will mean referring to the video that breaks it down.

Still, the playtest version in the UA seems to have largely come through unchanged, with the exception of the nonfunctional capstone, which was fixed to now replace attacks within a Flurry of Blows rather than the attack action. This does mean that it will cost a Focus Point to get that spell in, but I think it's probably worth it, as you'll likely be doing that every turn by that level anyway.

We also don't really need to worry about it too much, as we'll only really care about the 3rd and 6th level subclass features, which I believe are unchanged.

So: what are the relevant features?

Well, first off: spellcasting. At level 10, we'll have 1st and 2nd level spells, along with cantrips. Like Eldritch Knights, Enlarge/Reduce is probably going to be our best concentration spell to boost our damage, as we'll be adding 1d4 to each of our hits with the Enlarge effect active on us. It'll also potentially help us grapple, as we'll now be able to grapple Huge sized creatures. Arguably, we'll actually get a greater benefit from this spell than EKs do because we can do more attacks in a turn with the level 10 boost to Flurry of Blows.

The other relevant piece here will be that we can weave a cantrip into our extra attack feature. Many of the same cantrips are available to us. Blade Ward can, of course, be a nice defensive option, and one that is probably more "affordable" to us because any given attack on a Monk isn't that much damage. But as I'd suggest with Bladesingers, EKs, Valor Bards (though they won't be able to pick them up immediately) I'd really suggest getting the excellent Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade cantrips to let us do enhanced versions of attacks we'd want to make anyway. If you can't get these, True Strike is certainly an option, though note that this spell requires us to use our spellcasting ability, rather than merely allowing us to do so.

In terms of feats, I'd guess that Mystic Art Monks are probably going to want to lean a little further into Wisdom than some other Monks. You might choose to just go straight ASIs at each feat level to ensure you cap Dex, Wisdom, and get Con as high as you can. That said, I'm always down for taking Grappler on a 5.5 Monk. Weapon Master actually could be a decent choice if we want to dual-wield two light weapons - the damage dice for them will upgrade for us, so it's a nice little d8 boost of damage (at level 10).

Let's assume, though, that we're just getting raw stats with our feats, and we'll also be primarily using spells that are Wisdom-agnostic. We're going to assume, then, that by level 10, we've capped Dex so we can just focus our late-game feats on bumping Wisdom.

In order to use Booming Blade (our assumption for single-target situations, though GFB will always slot in for when there's cleave potential unless we're sure we can force them to move and get the punishment damage) we do need to be using a weapon that is worth at least 1sp. Luckily, Spears and Quarterstaffs both cost more than that. I'd guess that Spears are the better option (unless you're fighting skeletons) simply because of the option to throw them, though thanks to Martial Arts, we can really use any Simple melee weapon, or even martial melee weapons with the light property (which I think is just shortswords and scimitars?) They'll all be doing a d8 of damage, and the light property on weapons if we don't also somehow have Nick is kind of irrelevant in the face of our Martial Arts ability, so it's pretty arbitrary. (Actually, daggers can be great on a Monk because their damage will be just as good as anything else, and like spears, they can be thrown).

Now, a quick calculation: if we assume that the monster will move if we shove them away from us after hitting with Booming Blade, that'll add 2d8 damage. But if we just make another attack, we'll get 1d8+5, which is very slightly higher damage, so we're not going to pull those shenanigans unless we have a way to guarantee a knockback without sacrificing our damage.

So, the gameplan is this:

Turn one, we use our Action to cast Enlarge/Reduce on ourselves, growing to Large size and adding a d4 to each of our attacks. We then use Flurry of Blows to attack the target three times with unarmed strikes. On the first hit, we'll attempt a Stunning Strike. 

Turn two, we will use our (let's say) Quarterstaff to attack first with Booming Blade, and also attempt a Stunning Strike. Then, we make an additional attack (it doesn't matter if we make an unarmed strike or quarterstaff attack) and then again Flurry of Blows for three additional attack.

Let's figure out what kind of damage we're doing.

Actually, one last thing: let's assume we started with a 16 Wisdom and have not yet been able to raise that.

Ok:

Turn One:

Again, we Enlarge ourselves with our action. Then, it's three Flurry of Blows attack.

We have a +9 to hit, and so we hit the Wyvern's AC of 14 on a roll of 5 or higher, meaning an 80% hit chance. Each hit does 1d8+1d4+5 damage, or 12 average, with an additional 7 on a crit. So, 12x80% is 9.6 and 7x5% is .35, so we are doing 9.95 damage on that first attack.

Now, in the 80% chance that we hit on this attack, we will also try to Stunning Strike. Our DC will be 15. The Wyvern has a +3 to Con saves, so they fail on an 11 or lower, meaning a 55% chance to fail and 45% chance to succeed.

Here's where it gets a little messy: we get advantage on the next attack regardless, but we won't get it on the third attack unless they fail. But also, in the 20% chance that we miss, we won't have been able to use Stunning Strike. This isn't that hard to do for attack number 2, but it'll get more complicated the more attacks we get (turn two will be a lot crazier).

So, attack #2 is guaranteed to have advantage if we hit with the first attack. So, 20% of the time, it'll be the same average damage as the first attack, but 80% of the time, our hit chance grows to 96% and our crit chance to 9.75%. 12x96% is 11.52 and 7x9.75% is .6825, so with advantage our average damage is roughly 12.2. 12.2x80% is 9.76 and 9.95x20% is 1.99, so this attack will do 11.75 damage on average.

Now, attack 3 is where the headaches begin. We have advantage under the following circumstances: if the target failed the Con save versus Stunning Strike on attack 1, or if we hit the target on attack 2 after missing on attack 1.

So, the chance for that first scenario is 80%x55%, or 44% (the chance we hit on the first attack times the chance that the Wyvern failed). The chance for the second scenario is 80%x20%, or 16% (the chance we hit on the second attack without advantage times the chance we missed on the first attack). So, I believe this comes to a 60% chance that we get advantage on attack 3. Thus, we take the 11.75 average damage when we have advantage and multiply it by 60%, giving us 7.05 and then the 9.95 average damage when we don't have advantage and multiply it by the remaining 40%, giving us 3.98, for a total of 11.03.

Thus, on turn 1, totaling this, we can expect to deal an average of 32.73 damage. Frankly not too shabby for a set-up round.

    Now, onto turn two:

Here, that complexity is going to start going crazy as we have to figure it out over the course of 5 attacks.

Our first attack is now a Booming Blade attack, meaning it will hit for 2d8+1d4+5, so the damage and crit bonus goes up by 4.5, meaning average damage of 16.5 and crit bonus of 11.5.

Stunning Strike's effects, on a success or failure, end at the start our turn, so no worries about advantage on this first attack... which actually means we should probably save Booming Blade for our second attack.

If we then do so, we'll thus just do the familiar 9.95 average damage on this attack.

Booming Blade's advantage/disadvantage chances are the same as attack 2's on the first turn, so we're looking at an 80% hit and 5% crit chance 20% of the time and a 96%/9.75% 80% of the time. Without advantage, we're looking at 13.2 plus .575, for 13.775, and then with advantage, we're looking at 15.84 plus roughly 1.12, so 16.96. 13.775x20% is about 2.76, and 16.96x80% is about 13.57, so in total, this is doing 16.33 damage.

Now, our first Flurry of Blows attack should look identical to the first turn's attack 3, so we'll just use that value again, adding 11.03 damage.

Attack 4 on this turn is going to get really complicated: we get advantage if we hit on attack 1 and the Wyvern failed the save, if we missed on attack 1 and then hit on attack 2 and the wyvern failed, or if we missed on attacks 1 and 2 and then hit on attack 3. So, the first is the same familiar 80%x55%, or 44%. The second scenario is again 20%x that same 44%, or 8.8%. The third scenario is 80%x20%x20%, or 3.2%. So the chance we have advantage (if I've kept all these concept straight in my head) is 56%. So, we are looking at 11.75x56% and 9.95x44%, giving us 6.58+4.38(ish) for a total of 10.96.

Attack 5 (this is the last one, thank the gods) adds one more iteration onto this. Thus, we need to have missed with the first three attack and then hit with the fourth attack, or we need to have missed with attack 1 and hit with attack 2 and then the Wyvern must have failed their save, or missed with attacks 1 and 2 and hit with attack 3 and the Wyvern failed their save. Oh, or we need to have hit on the first attack and the wyvern failed their save, of course.

So, the first scenario is 20%x20%x20%x80%, or .64%. Scenario two is 20%x80%x55%, or 8.8%. Scenario three is 20%x20%x80%x55%, or 1.76%. Scenario four is that original 44%. Boy, I hope I didn't leave something out. Anyway, this gives us a 55.2% chance to have advantage. For sanity, I'm going to round that to 55%, and so we have 11.75x55%, or 6.46ish and 9.95x45%, or 4.48ish, giving this attack an average damage of 10.94, which you'll note is only .02 less than attack 4, meaning we might have been able to just approximate all of this.

Anyway, this means that by turn two, the average damage is 59.21, which is actually really freaking good.

This does require us to expend two FP each turn, but at level 10, that can be sustained for 5 turns. Concentration might not be the easiest thing to maintain here, given that we're probably going to be looking at a +3 bonus at most (and likely only a +2,) though Deflect Attacks can make Concentration saves a little easier.

We do have a set-up turn, but again, thanks to the fact that we're actually making more attacks with our bonus action than with our attack action, that doesn't punish us nearly as much as some other classes. Even if the combat only lasts two rounds, we average out to 45.97 damage, and that goes up if things get to round three.

This is beating a lot of my other builds. Indeed, if you didn't even use Stunning Strike and were making all attacks without advantage, you're still looking at 53.575 average damage on turn 2. It turns out that if you can add damage to every attack a Monk makes, they start really taking off, damage-wise.

And the nice thing is that this is relatively sustainable if you get some short rests in there. Assuming I have the numbers right, getting a 2nd level spell slot back can be done with 3 FP with a bonus action. While that'd be rough in combat, it's a great thing to do right before a short rest. At this level, you'll have 3 2nd level spell slots, so you might not even need to do that, but I think that's enough that you can probably afford to cast the spell every combat. Protecting concentration will be important, so you might consider delaying your Dex progression to take War Caster (which will feed into your Wisdom progression) but it's not the end of the world if you drop concentration, given how relatively easy it is to get those spell slots back.

The Warrior of Mystic Arts, Monks Joining the Third-Caster Club

 With Arcana Unleashed as the next official D&D release, I've been thinking a lot about how the books will affect 5.5. I am, as I have been in a lot of 5.5, been a little underwhelmed given how many options and spells are simply getting reprints, given that we don't really need a reprint of, say, Synaptic Static or Absorb Elements, given that, unless they're getting functional changes, they should already be available from Xanathar's Guide to Everything (I believe both were in that). The whole point of 5.5 was to be backwards compatible, and it is to a large extent. (You could give every Warlock subclass a blanket rule that they get their old "expanded spell list" as "patron spells" and kind of cover things that way.)

That said, the Warrior of Mystic Arts is simultaneously a new option as well as one that uses a tried-and-true formula. The Eldritch Knight Fighter and Arcane Trickster Rogue are among the most popular and powerful (the power likely a cause for the popularity, though not exclusively) subclasses for their respective classes. While a one-third caster for a Barbarian probably can't work without taking a wrench to the core Rage mechanic, the idea of a spellcasting Monk is not actually that crazy.

Indeed, in 2014, the Way of Four Elements actually replicated a lot of actual spells, but for some reason didn't work the same way, relying entirely on Ki Points (now Focus Points) for its spells and thus being extremely limited in its spellcasting capabilities. The revamped Warrior of Elements took the flavor of the Four Elements Monk but utterly reworked its mechanics, making it arguably the most powerful (or at least a respectable) subclass for Monks in the PHB (I think the argument for it as a powerful subclass is largely built on its capacity to be a grappler who holds foes far enough away that they can't fight back). But this did not take what I thought might have been the more obvious route and just made them a spellcaster (it might have been harder to enforce the specific relationship with elemental magic).

Here, though, we have a subclass that is built along the same way.

What's interesting, though, is where it differs from the Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight.

Both of those subclasses, which have been core to 5E since 2014, borrow the Wizard's spells, and the flavor of them is similar to the Wizard in the notion that these are magic spells that have been learned, and while you don't have a spellbook to endlessly collect spells, I've always felt the intended interpretation of the subclasses is that the knowledge of this magic is acquired in a similarly scholarly way, or at least via an intellectual understanding of the magical principles, the way that Wizards and Artificers cast their magic.

Indeed, these subclasses actually gave the only other options that mechanically encouraged high intelligence beside the Wizard in the 2014 PHB. Later, we'd get the Artificer, but this is part of the reason why 5.0 really produced a lot of himbo characters with low intelligence (while Dexterity and Charisma were quite common). I think those pressures are still there (between Bards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Paladins, Charisma's still a very important stat for a lot of people) but we're perhaps seeing a little broader of a spread now.

But while Mystic Arts Monks are third-casters, they're the only ones who A: don't use Intelligence and B: don't use the Wizard spell list.

The former is certainly wise: Monks already rely on Wisdom as their second-most-important stat (though Con is also pretty important). It's also already the source of their saving throw DCs for their Focus-Point-consuming abilities (one confusing thing for grappler monks is that they have two DCs to track, as the Grapple/Shove DC is based on Dexterity) so forcing them to invest in Intelligence as well would kind of hamstring the subclass (though I will say that you can build a very good Eldritch Knight who basically never worries about how high their Intelligence is - using cantrips like Booming Blade and spells like Shield, Misty Step, or Enlarge/Reduce, the latter to cast on yourself as a buff, means you could be dumb as a brick and do just fine).

The latter is kind of curious, though. Naturally, Arcana Unleashed is all about arcane magic, which doesn't have a mechanical definition (though it nearly did). But instead of Wizard spells, Mystic Arts Monks get Sorcerer spells. Now, I think there's arguments to be made over whether Sorcerers or Wizards are more powerful (I'd generally lean the latter just because they have such unparalleled utility, but probably in combat specifically, the Sorcerers might have the edge - though they lack some of the insane power-spells, primarily Conjure Minor Elementals).

I actually think that Monks getting into Wizard magic would make a ton of sense, as both are classes that have an association with cloistered practice and study. I mean, real monks (I think both in the East and West) are often very scholarly, with acts of intellectual study incorporated into their spiritual practice. In fact, I think that it would make a lot of sense to give them the Cleric spell list as an alternative (I like the idea of a Cleric who is a mystic that is very into esoterica).

But I imagine one of the reasons they chose Sorcerer is more mechanical than flavorful: Monks and Sorcerers both have a point-based resource equal to your level in that class. The parallels between Sorcery Points and Focus Points are pretty clear, and this subclass effectively allows you to use the latter as the former.

I think the most potentially exploitable/optimizable element here will be the fact that Focus Points come back on a short rest, and because they can be converted into spell slots, a Monk who gets to take multiple short rests in a day can potentially have significantly more spellcasting opportunities than their Rogue and Fighter brethren.

Simply adding spellcasting to just about any class makes it more powerful because of the breadth of options - indeed, while many bemoan the Ranger's design flaws (guilty as charged,) its half-caster nature often puts it ahead of non-caster classes in a lot of optimizers' tier rankings (a format of criticism that I know is very flawed by nonetheless I feel compelled by).

At the same time, as I've talked about in my critique of the subclass when it was first previewed, there are some things that Monks can do that already kind of get some of what you want out of spells already. Shield is an amazing spell for Eldritch Knights (because they can stack it on top of heavy armor - it's already amazing for anyone who can get it) but given the power of Deflect Attacks, it's not... bad to have, but it's also partially redundant, as Monks can often fully negate the damage of an attack as one of their core class features. Similarly, Misty Step, as spell that I think I'll take on just about any character who can get it (though I'll concede I don't think I've cast it on my Wizard in a while) is somewhat less appealing when playing a character who can already disengage or dash, or both, as a bonus action.

My suspicion is that the Mystic Arts Monk might suffer a bit from taking the Sorcerer spell list - the power of the Sorcerer is largely that it takes a lot of Wizard spells and tosses metamagic and Innate Sorcery on top of them, neither of which the Mystic Arts Monk has, so it'd probably be better off if it got the Wizard list just to broaden the options (there are some spells Sorcerers get that Wizards don't, but the opposite is a much larger category). But compared to other Monks? I think it's likely to be a real powerhouse.

Martials, Casters, and Balance

 If you play D&D casually, you probably aren't terribly invested in which classes or subclasses are the most powerful. You can have a great time playing any class, or even any (well, many) multiclass abominations.

But if you are cursed like me with the philosophical inclination to be all about story and thematic resonance but with a sick little addiction to making number go big, (or if you're just an unapologetic min-maxxer) you're probably aware that the general consensus is that spellcasters in D&D are more powerful than martial characters.

I think this is a problem for the following reason:

The point of balance in a game like this is, in my opinion, there to make your story-and-thematic choices for your character's build ones that feel like they're rewarding you instead of punishing you. The point of D&D should be for you to make a character that fulfills the story you've imagined in your head. Essentially, balance is the rules getting out of the way of the story.

Now, playing a spellcaster in D&D naturally comes with a power fantasy - you want to have supernatural capabilities that no human being has ever had in the real world (or outside of extraordinary and unverified tales if that's your belief system). But there is a fantasy as well in being the powerful martial character: you want to be the kind of person who can keep pace with such magical people with nothing but your wits, skills, and strength.

Ok, but what causes this imbalance?

On its surface, you could conclude that a spellcaster is not going to deal as much damage turn-to-turn because a cantrip doesn't scale as well as extra attack: consider Fire Bolt, among the highest-damage-potential cantrips in the game. At tier 1, it's doing 1d10 fire damage, which is 5.5. A character wielding a d8 weapon, though, will do 1d8+3, probably, at tier 1, meaning that they'd be doing 7.5 damage on a hit. While most classes don't get much beyond that extra attack boost at level 5, while a cantrip scales up at each tier of play, two attacks for 1d8+5 would be 9.5 each and thus 19 total, which does, yes, fall behind a tier 4 Fire Bolt (which does 4d10 and thus an average of 22) but many martial classes will have ways to get around that - Fighters getting more attacks, Barbarians adding larger rage bonuses, Paladins getting an extra d8 of damage, and Monks getting a higher damage die.

But while playing a pure caster in tier 1 is an exercise in spell slot conservation, pretty quickly, they can be more liberal with their spell slots, even if the higher-level ones are still somewhat precious. And while cantrips might not do a ton of damage, a Fireball that hits three or more targets is going to do more damage (generally) than a martial character would do in several turns. And even against a single target, a 5th level Wizard casting Fireball will do 28 damage on average (or 14 on a successful save - if we imagine a 50% success chance, it's an average of 21 damage overall).

Even in single target situations, casters can often outpace martial characters: I've written a lot about the Conjure Minor Elementals/Scorching Ray interaction, which does truly insane damage numbers. And that's before we even get into the harder-to-quantify utility of having spells that can teleport, crowd-control, or otherwise reshape the battlefield, as well as crucially important non-combat spells that can aid with traversal, finding objectives, and just generally helping the party.

The balance, then, I believe, is that martial characters are supposed to be more sustainable. Spell slots are a limited resource, and most classes don't get them back except on a long rest. Meanwhile, a Fighter's "swing sword" ability (aka, The Attack Action) never runs out. It's a cantrip, essentially, but other enhancements can also be bolted onto it. Weapon Masteries can add additional effects to your attacks, and also never run out. Feats like Great Weapon Master will also enhance those attacks, and never run out.

This is all well and good, but I think there are two issues as to why I don't think that's what we actually see:

First off, as many have pointed out, the way we play D&D in the 5E era, adventures tend to be more plot-oriented. The days of long, slow dungeon crawls are mostly in the past, such that other game systems have even been designed to try to recreate that old-school feel. In an edition shaped to a large extent by actual play shows like Critical Role, the idea of a lengthy day with as many as ten combat encounters between long rests is pretty alien. Instead, it's more likely that an adventuring day has one, two, or maybe three encounters if it's a really lengthy day. To make up for this, the encounters tend to be more challenging, with more and/or deadlier monsters. The 2024 DMG updating its encounter-building math to make fights significantly harder, giving a much larger XP budget than we had in 2014, and generally giving tougher encounters than the guidance in Xanathar's.

But what I think is often overlooked is the other issue: PC HP.

At a certain point, it's just not feasible for players to continue adventuring. If people are sitting at bloodied after using up all their hit dice on a short rest, they're simply not going to push on, and will instead do whatever they can to find an opportunity for a long rest. And not only do narratives often allow for this (in a dungeon crawl, it's usually not that hard to just retrace your steps back to the entrance and camp outside) but there are also lots of mechanics that really protect the ability to take a long rest at will - spells like Leomund's Tiny Hut or Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in particular are the spells that will just pretty much say "no, I get to take a long rest and you (the DM) cannot prevent me from doing so."

If you imagine you've got a group of adventurers at, say, level 4, going through some dungeon, we can imagine that a Fighter might have, say, 40 HP. Even if they're fighting really low-level monsters, like Skeletons, each hit is going to be taking about 6.5 off of that total. If we figure a Skeleton had a 50% chance of hitting them (a +5 attack bonus against someone in chain mail with a 16 AC) then it would take roughly 12 attacks to take the Fighter down. That might seem like a lot, but if they're level 4, and fighting such low-CR monsters, that might only be two rounds of attacks against them, because they'll be fighting so many.

In a game where you have 6 fights over the course of a day, a Wizard is going to have to pick and choose which of those fights gets to see one of their, in this case, 2nd level spells. But after three of them, there's a good chance that the Fighter is so beaten up that they can't really carry on.

So, how would I solve this?

Well, naturally this is something that would need ample playtesting, but my general instinct is to boost PCs HP, and particularly Martial classes.

As it stands, a Monk doesn't inherently have any more HP than a Druid. Monks are, of course, a weird exception - frankly, I think that they missed an opportunity to make their hit die a d10 or even a d12 in 5.5 (what does a hit die represent, exactly? Surely if it's general hardiness, a Monk who has relentlessly trained their body would be more resilient than some Warlock begging magic from their patron?) But even if we look at Paladins and Fighters, a d10 hit die only means, on average, one more HP per level (well, two more at level 1) than a d8. My Wizard will be getting a +4 to Con when he hits level 12, meaning that at that level, he'll have 98 HP. A Paladin in that party with a +2 to Con will have 100. Between my Coat of the Crest (a magic item out of Tal'dorei Campaign Setting Reborn that, among other things, adds +1 to your AC), Mage Armor, and the Shield spell, you could argue that my Wizard is actually a more resilient front-line fighter than the tanky paladin with a shield and plate armor.

That doesn't seem right.

I don't know if just changing hit dice would be enough. What I'd be tempted to do is instead give martial characters way more HP. If we were starting with just hit dice, we could say that rather than rolling your die or taking the average (rounded up) each level, you'd just get the maximum. This would expand the gap between martials and casters - if that were the case, my Wizard at level 12 would have 120 HP and the Paladin would have 144. If I hadn't rolled such high stats, and only had a +2 to Con, instead I'd have 96.

What this would mean, then, is that the martials could keep on fighting longer, weathering more encounters.

But while this would solve the latter problem, I think we'd be left with the more broadly recognized issue, which is just that we don't do long, grueling days with lots of combat encounters.

One solution is to just give martial characters more diverse capabilities. I see this in a game like Draw Steel, where there's far less of a divide between spellcasters and martial characters because every class fundamentally works on the same principles and resource system (even if the resources themselves are a bit different).

But if we don't actually want to mess with the game's mechanics themselves, and approach this simply as a Dungeon Master, what might our approach be?

First off, I think we can recognize that a single adventuring day need not take place in a single session. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a really action-packed day. As DM, you have some dials you can turn to prevent a party from getting a long rest. The simplest, easiest one is the clock.

Characters cannot benefit from a Long Rest more than twice in a 24-hour period. Thus, if your party gets through one easy or moderate combat encounter and seeks to rest after it, you can simply say that it's still morning. The rest won't come.

The next is to simply keep the pressure on them. If players prefer more cinematic storytelling with action set-pieces, have monsters hound them. The old "you cannot rest here, enemies are nearby" technique.

But, of course, these will punish martials pretty much as much as casters given the gradual (or not so gradual if the fights are big) reduction in HP. And that's why you'd want to combine this with... copious amounts of healing items. Give out healing potions with reckless abandon. Because a healing potion will, you know, heal a character, but it doesn't give them any other resources. Thus, a Rogue or Monk who can "do this all day" when it comes to their character abilities (Monks do have to ration their Focus Points, but they've made it easier to get those back, and still get to make three attacks per turn for free every turn) will actually be able to do this all day if they're getting frequent healing. Thus, the party will actually start to feel like it's good that they aren't all-in on full spellcasters.

High Magic and High Fantasy

 WotC is moving on from its "Season of Horror" to its "Season of Magic," which raises some questions: what is "magic" as a theme in fantasy?

To me, my definition of fantasy is that it must involve the supernatural. This creates a very broad umbrella under which fantasy stories can fall, though there are plenty of genres that sit in borderlands and frontiers. In theory, you could write a whole secondary-world that involves a bunch of medieval politics of made-up countries with made-up histories, and that might seem like fantasy, but even drier, "harder" works of fantasy like A Song of Ice and Fire still have these supernatural elements, even if they are focused on less than the mundane, human-level politicking and interpersonal drama. But were you to write a truly-magic-less work of fiction like that, I think I'd be inclined to say that it was some other genre and not truly fantasy. Fantasy must have the supernatural, and magic, generally is a catch-all term for the supernatural.

D&D would have to be extraordinarily limited to avoid any magic. You'd basically only have humanoid and beast monsters (and lots of humanoids would also be banned,) and furthermore, you'd have to cut out a whole bunch of classes and some of the subclasses for the remaining ones.

I don't think there are many who would prefer to play that way. The magical and supernatural as a storytelling device is a license to allow our imaginations to run wild and free.

Which brings us to this question: how do we focus on magic when magic is already so prevalent in the game?

I think the answer is to delve into High Magic.

D&D in particular inherited and in many ways codified a kind of street-level magic. A scrappy bar-brawl might involve, sure, people pulling out swords or clubs or crossbows, but in a D&D world, it's just as common to have someone (maybe it's uncommon, but not unheard of) toss a Fire Bolt. There's a whole sort of trope and subgenre of a world in which random schmucks running around with kind of magical ability forces society to adapt. A shop with "enchanters will be prosecuted" on a sign in the window, or maybe the local tavern having a permanent illusion spell that works a bit like an animated neon sign.

But there's also a grand tradition in fantasy of this sort of higher, deeper, more profound magic - something on the cutting edge. If you think about it, the spells you cast in D&D, almost all of them, are temporary effects. They're also primarily battle-magic. High Magic, though, is the sort that can shape the world, truly creating lasting changes. It might even be something that changes the way magic works in the first place.

And that's... hard to build into a rules system.

Indeed, there's a kind of sense that when you hit certain tiers of play, you become heroes (or at least powerful individuals - nothing in D&D says you have to be a good guy) of historical levels of power. And certainly, the kinds of things you can pull off as an 18th level Wizard are pretty nuts. But it's pretty rare to have big, sweeping, permanent effects on the world outside of the Wish spell - typically the only other options being the ones you have to cast once a day for a year, and these might just effectively create a building.

So, I think there are two approaches to take here:

First off, there's the villainous plot: indeed, I think you could argue that many if not most plots involve a villainous archmage or lich trying to enact some grand scheme. We could look at published adventures: the Cult of the Dragon trying to summon Tiamat to the prime material plane in Tyranny of Dragons, or Acererak's efforts to create a new, evil god in Tomb of Annihilation. The players in these campaigns are trying to halt the effort and preserve the natural way of things as they exist already.

Another approach, though, could be one in which an act of high magic spurs forward a new adventure: perhaps some group of mages opens a number of stable, permanent portals to other worlds or planes. Now, there's a rush to explore these new worlds and/or deal with some of the new threats that come through said portals. Maybe new forms of magic suddenly become available - you could have a setting in which magic either didn't exist, or perhaps was only accessible through narrow means (perhaps it was a world of Warlocks only, but now mere mortals are able to access magic without a patron).

Of course, a third approach could be that it is the party who is seeking to achieve an act of great magic. The quests they embark on would be the steps required to achieve their grand work.

Now, in terms of aesthetics, I think High Magic should tend toward the surreal - mazes and other strange and confusing environments. Likewise, strange creatures are good options for your combat encounters - constructs, elementals, and monstrosities created through experimental magic are all strong options here.

While a Lich can be a great antagonist for a campaign focused on high magic (as it appears to be with the upcoming Deadfall campaign, with Szass Tam as the big bad) I would say that if you want to lean into this high fantasy vibe rather than dark fantasy, you might actually downplay the classic "army of the dead" minions that a Lich villain often has. Liches are undead, sure, but they're also powerful wizards, and thus might eschew armies all together in favor of greater magical creations.

As a last point: I'd go pretty heavy on providing magic items to the party, but I'd also favor "interesting solution" items. While I think you should always ensure that your party's, say, Barbarian, gets a cool magic weapon, I think this is the kind of campaign where I'd really favor things like Immovable Rods, Alchemy Jugs, Potions of Gaseous Form, and other things that don't have an obvious combat utility, but which encourage the party to get creative.

Extra Attack and the Smoothing of Probability

 Just an interesting bit of design philosophy:

Hitting level 5 in D&D feels amazing. Every class, with the exception of the Rogue (who oddly gets a defensive ability) will get something that really dramatically increases their power. Pure spellcasters get 3rd level spells, which include such bangers as Fireball and Spirit Guardians, while martials get Extra Attack.

And why does Extra Attack feel so good to get (I'll lump in the cantrip progression of Eldritch Blast here as well)?

Because it smooths out the probability of landing a hit.

Analyzing "damage per round" things like I've been doing with all sorts of classes and builds is an abstraction. When you attack with a Maul, you're not really doing, like, 70% of 2d6+3 and then 5% of 2d6. You're either hitting or you're not. Probability tells you how likely one or another thing is going to happen before it does, but once it does happen, it's locked in. (This is why being "due for a win" in games of chance after losing many times is a logical illusion - before you started, you might have said that you would win after X attempts, but once you've lost in X-1 previous attempts, that model is no longer accurate).

In statistics, larger sample sizes produce more accurate results. Asking 10 people, for example, who they're going to vote for in an election, might produce a very skewed result if the actual electorate is a hundred thousand people, because you might purely by chance happen to pick all people who are voting for the yellow candidate, giving you the false impression that they have 100% of the electorate's support. If you instead had a sample size of 100, it'd be much less likely that none of the purple candidate's managed to get into the sample. Even if the purple candidate only has 5% of the electorate's actual votes (30,000) the chance that you don't get a single person who supports them in a group of 10 is 95% to the 10th power, or about 60%, but the chance you don't get one in a group of a hundred drops to about .6%.

It's the same idea: if you attack once and have a 60% chance of hitting a target (say you've got an attack bonus of +5 and your target has an AC of 14, you'll land a hit and get to deal damage... 6 times out of 10. But if you have extra attack, the chance you get to do something with an attack goes up by a lot - to 84%. Now, each attack still only has a 60% chance, but the chance you'll only miss drops from 40% to 16%. (Incidentally, the chance that you hit both times is only 36%).

Now, the good feeling of Extra Attack goes beyond this: we deal more damage on average. Indeed, we basically double our damage output. It is probably the biggest jump in power that any player characters actually experience. Even when a Fighter gets a third and later fourth attack, this is a jump of 50% and later 33%, compared to this 100% damage bump at level 5.

We often talk about tier 2 as feeling like the sweet-spot of D&D 5E, when the game feels the most balanced and satisfying. Now, comparing this with tier 3 and especially tier 4, a big part of this is because players don't have absurd solutions to every problem, like long-distance teleportation spells or great big extradimensional spaces. Saving throw DCs for players' features tend not to get to 20 or above at these levels.

But the reason I think tier 1 feels... maybe not bad, but kind of limited is that we run into these kind of binary situations - you hit or you miss, and at these levels, monster damage is high enough relative to our HP that we don't have a lot of recourse if some Incubus crits us for 26 damage (a level 4 Wizard with a +2 to Con would have 26 HP if not rolling for HP).

There's a feeling upon hitting level 5 that one has "arrived on the scene." You go from being desperate scrappers that aren't that much more powerful than the civilians you're there to save to being real professional hero-types.

Here, though, is why I think that effects like Graze are really interesting - from level 1, your attacks will always do something, but you still prefer to hit so that you can do a bit more.

    It's interesting, then, to see how this principle is approached in games like Draw Steel and Daggerheart.

In Draw Steel, there is no attack roll - essentially, you skip ahead to the damage roll on any of your abilities. Thus, there's no reason for something like Extra Attack to exist, as it would purely just increase your damage. Your damage does go up, but primarily because you're accruing more heroic resources faster to spend on more powerful (and expensive) abilities, and because your gradually rising main characteristics will make it more likely to get a tier 3 result on power rolls (and less likely to get minimal tier 1 results). But I also think (theoretically) that the progression of power in that game is smoother - things like Signature Abilities don't really do more damage, but you have to rely on them less.

In Daggerheart, there's almost an opposite direction that they take: you have to roll to do anything in combat (including casting spells) but you don't get more attacks because that would make it more likely that you have to pass the spotlight back to the GM. However, instead, you wind up rolling additional damage dice based on your tier of play (or whatever the equivalent term is). Essentially, everyone has more Rogue-like scaling in Daggerheart.

I think one of the things that can be frustrating for higher-level play is that the universality of scaling breaks down. Fighters and, now, Monks, effectively get more attacks at higher levels (Monks though through Flurry of Blows' upgrade at level 10) while Paladins add a new damage die to each attack, and then Barbarians have Brutal Strikes, which brings utility but can sometimes wind up being a net damage loss if the target's AC is high enough. And Rangers... don't really get anything.

But also, while Fighters and again, sort of Monks, get this greater "damage smoothing" effect, the others don't.

A Vision for Martial Abilities in Some Future 6E

 One thing you'll quickly notice when looking through 5E D&D is that most classes have some form of spellcasting. The spellcasting system is a really powerful way to not only give players more options on how to play, but also just makes the decision-making process from moment to moment kind of more interesting.

It's also kind of an odd system, when you look at it: a Wizard might have a mix of utility spells like Detect Magic, Sending, or Leomund's Tiny Hut along with very combat-focused spells like Fireball or Summon Elemental.

This creates a tension - while many spells are Rituals, and can generally be cast for free outside of combat, the more times you send a 25-word voice message long-distance in a day, the fewer giant explosions of fire you can produce.

I've talked a lot on this blog about how excited I am to try Draw Steel, which I think really makes part of its mission to make playing a Martial character just as fun and interesting as playing a Spellcaster character - these distinctions don't really exist in Draw Steel, because everyone's just using a few abilities they gain from their classes, subclasses, and sometimes kits.

There's an elegance to Draw Steel's abilities, which feels a little more like a Blizzard RPG like World of Warcraft or Diablo (both Blizzard and MCDM are headquartered in Orange County). But I'm not really advocating for D&D to go the same route:

People love the endless possibilities of an ever-expanding spell list.

And so, we're presented with an interesting challenge:

Can we come up with something that is as versatile as spells that we give to martial characters, but that feels distinct?

To be clear, this is not something we could bolt on to 5E. Even if there's a (probably correct) sense that martial characters lack the utility and choices that a spellcaster could use, this would add so much to these classes that I'd really want to just do a thorough redesign.

    I think where I'd start is to give martial characters something like an equivalent to cantrips and leveled attacks.

One of the things that honestly kind of surprised me when I started playing D&D was that martial often just "take the attack action," and a Ranger shooting a bow, a Rogue stabbing with a dagger, or a Barbarian slashing with a greataxe all basically work the same way.

Weapon Masteries, I think, kind of gave weapon attacks something like the effects of a cantrip. Slow is pretty much what you get from Ray of Frost, for example.

While I really like Weapon Masteries, I think what I'd probably do is get rid of them and instead attach them to these "cantrip" attacks.

Picture this: you're playing a Paladin, and at 1st level, you get two "basic strikes." You could pick "Vexing Strike," which gives you advantage on your next attack if you hit, or "Grazing Slash," which guarantees your Strength bonus on a melee attack.

Different classes might gain access to different basic strikes. Rogues might get access to those that thematically fit more with the kinds of weapons a rogue would use.

We need not be limited to the weapon masteries - indeed, I think we could potentially re-create some melee cantrips in this way. Booming Blade, or something along these lines, could be an option, perhaps flavored less as something magical and more like you inflict some injury on their legs that damages them (with, like, piercing damage) if they move. Something like Shocking Grasp, that prevents opportunity attacks, could be another.

Now, there's a question of scaling: most Martial Classes get Extra Attack at level 5, and then things like Radiant Strikes, the Fighter's third (and later fourth) attack, and such give them some scaling.

We could give these basic strikes scaling with level similar to cantrips, though we don't want to double-dip too much.

Indeed, we could just get rid of Extra Attack and make the damage scaling work with these and the "leveled strikes" we haven't covered yet. But one really big advantage of Extra Attack is that it smooths out the probability of hitting and missing. Especially at higher levels, when combat takes a lot more time, missing with your only attack on a turn feels really awful, but having more attacks means you're less likely to do nothing on your turn.

Thus, we'd need to figure out the proper scaling to ensure that this remains balanced.

Now, if we wanted to go the simplest route, we could give martials the same 9 levels of "leveled strikes" and the same number of "strike slots" that casters get.

Naturally, some of these strikes would probably be big combat abilities. I imagine you could have things like Whirlwind (you do damage in an emanation around you, maybe with a Dex save for half) or Titanic Strike (you make an attack and deal something like 6d8 damage to a target and knock them prone). You might also have some more utility options: something like Temper Weapon, where you could give a weapon an attack and damage bonus of +1 for 8 hours or something.

This could also be a place to get some tools for social and exploration encounters.

    A couple things would have to follow from this:

First off, some of these "strikes" or "maneuvers" or whatever you want to call them would probably be redundant with other class abilities.

You'd also likely need to dial back some class abilities in general to deal with the new power martials would get (Wizards are arguably the most powerful class in the game, and they get barely any actual core class features beyond their spellcasting feature).

How would half-casters work? I could imagine giving Rangers and Paladins similar half-progression with martial strikes the way that they do with spells. Artificers are a little weirder - I'd argue that Alchemists, Artillerists, Cartographers, and Reanimators probably should actually be full casters anyway, while you could treat Battle Smiths and Armorers in a similar manner to Rangers and Paladins.

There's also a potential downside: the simplicity of martial characters can sometimes be appealing to players first learning how to play D&D. While I, as someone with over ten years of experience with D&D, find the Champion Fighter pretty dang boring, I also get that it's a really solid option if a player only want to have to remember more or less how to make attack rolls.

This would basically make every class as complex as a full caster. And while generally my experience with most players is that even beginners don't shy away from complex classes (even when they maybe should,) it might still be helpful to have something a little simpler and approachable for those who prefer it.

Still, I think there's a lot of open design space if we were to give martial characters the same kind of customizability that spellcasters get.

Sorting Out Critical Role's Campaign Four (At the End of the First Convergence)

 Critical Role's 4th Campaign is a big departure in many ways: it's not set on Exandria (with no suggestion that these even take place in the same universe - the mention of a magic item being the equivalent of a Vestige of Divergence was misconstrued by a lot of fans,) it's got a different Dungeon Master, there are several more players, and there are separate "tables" for different groups of characters on different arcs.

Indeed, as we found at the end of this first "convergence," in which the entire "party" came together, the tables aren't going to have fixed memberships, with some Schemers heading out as Seekers and some Soliders staying behind.

I'm going to get into some heavy spoilers here, so I'll do a cut, but I'm more interested in the broader speculation about what's coming down the line more than necessarily going over every shocking plot twist.

Anyway, spoilers ahead.