Sword of Spirit
Legend
Ah, yeah. It looks like I wasn't terribly clear. The idea is that casters having the world-changing non-combat stuff doesn't necessarily make you feel overshadowed as a non-caster, when that isn't something you are going for with your character concept. Your character is putting out more round after round damage, or tanking better, or being incredible with skills, or doing whatever it is that they are focusing on being good at with that class, that the casters aren't doing, and therefore not feeling overshadowed. So, it is about not caring about being overshadowed in certain manners, which is kind of something that everyone has to do anyway. Picking someone without heavy armor proficiency is choosing to be overshadowed if you care about wearing the heaviest armor (which most people don't). It's just that, in my experience, not every player cares about having the world-changing non-combat stuff. I mean, I love casters (I honestly like just about every class), but when I'm not playing a caster, I personally don't tend to care about that. If I'm playing a tricksy rogue, I care about being the best at that (and probably about doing a good job being the group's comedian), etc.
Sorry if it looked like I was trying to present a false dichotomy. I was really just briefly contrasting and conflating some things that seem to come up in that context to explain how my group can not have some problems that other groups might have. Pretty much all of the preferences and playstyle elements I mentioned can be separated and combined in different ways.
Absolutely. For monsters (since the changes to casters happen for NPCs too, I figure it's relevant) I'm basically using the 2014 monsters as a starting point, since I prefer the design, but increasing their stats and features--particularly for the more physical/"martial" types.
On the player side, I've been making customization to some of the classes. 2024 gave me some inspiration, but most of the time I'm not actually adopting what it did because I didn't care for the implementation. A few off the top of my head: I have tweaked barbarians so that the bonus action to activate rage can be used alongside other rage-compatible bonus actions (and they're going to get another buff I'm still working on); I've given the fighter a feature that let's them mark opponents; I've adopted the 2024 changes to monk's Patient Defense and Step of the Wind; rangers get some of the Tasha's stuff added on to the PHB stuff (instead of as an alternative), they all know hunter's mark without needing a spell pick, and it doesn't require concentration when they cast it (it still does require concentration for non-rangers), rogues are going to get some neat stuff inspired by LevelUp. Those are a few off the top of my head. I try to pay attention to critiques I see about relative class power, and my gut feelings from experience usually fall the same way.
One of the ones that I'm finding to be very impactful, is that I'm applying a version of the Cleaving through Creatures variant rule.
Here's my version:
"When your melee weapon attack reduces a creature to 0 hit points, choose another target that is within reach and would be a valid target for the attack. If your original attack roll hits that target, apply any remaining damage to it. If it is reduced to 0 hp, you can continue to target additional creatures as long as you have damage and valid targets remaining."
The main difference from the DMG version is that the additional creatures don't have to be at max hit points. So rather than just being a conversion of the 1e's fighter's ability to mow down lots of mooks in a single round, my version basically greatly reduces the likelihood of weapon using characters wasting overkill damage.
The samurai fighter has been really mowing things down with that. They also have Great Weapon Master (my version is basically the 2024 version, but no bonus action is required for the additional attack, and you don't get the ability score increase). Both of those together mean this character is a real whirlwind of death. I'm not sure we've been properly remembering to have the monk and rogue in the party take advantage of the rule, since it's pretty new, but that's something I've had on my list to remind them about. If the rogue can set themselves up so that two targets are valid for sneak attack (relatively easy in the sorts of melees I run), they can eliminate a lot of lost overkill damage from sneak attack.
Another real minor rule I made is that if you are Dodging and someone gets a nat 1 on an attack against you, you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against them. I figured that would almost never come up, but the very first session we tried it the monk kept getting use out of it. It was mostly just a way to make Dodge feel a little bit less of a waste of an action, but it seems like it might synergize decently with monk features.
I do not expect the changes that I've made to the classes would be satistfactory for those who have more of a problem with caster/martial disparity (the classes won't get as a big of a buff as 2024 gives them), but they seem to be working well for where my group sits.
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