Angry Peasant Games

    As we discussed in our last article, martials are from session 0 woefully underprepared for the non-combat elements of the game. This appears to be justified in the game design, as a core part of the game’s ludonarrative is the idea that casters are apparently comparatively underprepared for combat and the world of adventuring in comparison to the martials. Casters are portrayed in terms of starting options as being generally less likely to be physically prepared to take a hit and less aware of how to handle themselves in combat, and it is actually true that they are more poorly equipped. 

      The question though is whether or not the differences are actually statistically significant especially when we consider that casters get far more options to make up for their insufficiencies than martials. In other words, do the casters have significant drawbacks/trade-offs to their vast array of options that balances them out to martials? 

     The most important and obvious way the game does this is through the class-based “hit die” system. The way this works is that the game is structured so that your class decides how many hit points you have, your rate of hit point gain and your ability to regain hit points over a short rest in order to keep pushing forward through a tough adventuring day without any outside help.

     In our experience, the myth that casters are generally physically weaker or “squishier” than martials comes from the tendency to compare the extremes without looking at the actual layout of the classes as a whole. When a person compares a Wizard to a Barbarian it is easy to get the sense that spellcasters are generally “squishy” and martials are generally much sturdier. The problem is this ignores that the vast majority of classes are actually all super clumped together and that statistical differences are actually quite slight in practice.

    The fact is the majority of the classes, including the majority of casters and half the martials, share the exact same hit die, a d8.  Combine this with the fact that a caster is more likely to only need a singular stat and you get a rather high possibility that the majority of casters will be on average tied with the martials in terms of hit points and, even if not, probably only trailing them by 1 or 2 points. Using standard array and assuming everyone takes the Quick Build advice to put CON as high as possible after accounting for their main stats and DEX we can assume everyone has either a +1 or +2 to CON at lvl 1 which we can use to get the following average HP.  

Here is the Hit Die layout and average lvl 1 Hit Points:   

    This means that when we actually account for all casters the average Caster HP at lvl 1 actually stands at around 9.5 in comparison to a Martial average of about 11. Take into account the fact that your average CR ¼ monster is dealing about 4-5 damage per round and the physically weaker half of the martials are only capable of taking the same number of hits as the casters and the stronger ones are only capable of taking one or two more hits before they have to burn one of their core resources. 

    This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that we could rely on the fact that the Martials will be hit more. Once again, people look to the extreme ends of the spectrum with spellcasters and assume that martials are harder to hit. As you probably noticed, if you’ve ever looked at the armour proficiencies, there is no class who has proficiency in medium or heavy armour but lacks proficiency in shields. It should also be noted that there is no downside to having a shield as a caster, provided you have at least one free hand you can handle the somatic components of your spells. In fact, thanks to most of the game’s best weapons being two-handed this means that the Fighter and Barbarian are more incentivized to not carry a shield than the casters. This means not carrying a shield is usually a roleplay choice on the part of a large portion of casters. While wizards, sorcerers and to a lesser extent bards and warlocks absolutely are at a disadvantage in terms of trade-offs (we’ll elaborate in later articles) for starting AC, the majority of the casting classes (5 out of 9) effectively are not. That being said, DEX is a secondary stat for all of these casters, meaning under standard array they almost definitely have either a +2 or +1. While starting equipment is never the best equipment the character can use, we can produce an estimated AC for each class based on this assumption and starting equipment. With those assumptions in mind the real starting AC range is as follows: 

This leaves an average caster AC of about 14 (13.88) and a martial AC of about 14 as well (13.75). It is also worth noting that the only martial artist who can top the rounded Caster average of 14 is the Fighter with Monk barely meeting it and Rogue and Barbarian both falling below average. 

Why Does It Matter?: The Roleplay Factor

   This might not seem that bad, after all, why should the caster be a walking house of cards so that the martials can feel extra beefy? We see two main issues. The first problem is that it severely damages roleplay. While the disparities between the martials make sense out of context, for the d8 martials, the Monk and the Rogue, there is a huge roleplay issue when we account for the fact that their hp is likely to be identical to or potentially lower than the majority of the casters. 

      This may be fairly subjective, but for me it is easy to believe the usually unarmoured and agility-focused martial artist and the self-taught hardened criminal are slightly weaker than the knight or the raging man of the wilds. It is somewhat harder for me to believe that the average priest and traveling artist are as good (sometimes better!) at taking a hit than a martial artist or hardened street thug. This is especially true for the Monk who has two stats they need to prioritize before constitution meaning they very easily may wind up with fewer hit points than the Bard or Cleric. 

    This especially impacts the Monk who, unlike the Rogue, has no feasible ranged option offered to them by the main rules. Their low HP massively undermines their believability as being the close-quarters combat specialists of the party as very many of the monsters the party will be facing even at lvl 1 will be more than capable of one-shotting them. Two minutes on any DnD meme page is all anyone needs to see the effect this has had on how seriously monks are taken at the table. The wizard may have the fewest hit points but the fact that the Monk is the one that actually has to walk up to the orc’s face means they are almost always the party member who will be knocked unconscious the most. Less “zen martial arts master”, more impulsive friend who starts fights they can’t win and always needs to be carried home…

The Problem in Context: The Combat Factor     

       The second issue is how it makes the martial-caster combat divide begin at level 1. Whilst our previous article tackled how Martials are shafted in the social and explorational elements of the game, the hit die and AC differences show how they tend to suffer in combat as well right from the get go. 

       As our example (spoilers for those who have not played the D&D 5e starter set), let’s use the first fight from Lost Mine of Phandelver. This module is far from perfect and has had some complaints about its difficulty but it is generally well-received and by far the most common official startpoint being the module the designers personally designed for new players so it forms a good basis for our baseline assumptions.  

         For simplicity’s sake, let’s use the hypothetical party we made in our first article consisting of a standard array Druid, Bard, Rogue and Barbarian. Being new to the game none of them feel the need to tinker with their starting equipment or mess with their quick build recommendations. This gives us the following starting HP and AC values for our adventurers: 

    Now, this may not seem so bad. After all, isn’t it good if the party is more or less balanced? In order to recognize the significance of this, it’s important to note that actual play and on paper numbers are entirely different. 13 AC on a Bard is entirely more beneficial to a Bard  than 13 AC on a Barbarian. The best defense in D&D 5e is simply to not be a target, which not only the Bard but also the Druid, who has the highest AC in the party, have the option of doing. Like most casters they will likely try to keep distance between themselves and the frontline, close enough to assist the frontline but far enough to be flexible and avoid attacks. Having ranged spells also reinforce this behaviour as there is no intrinsic incentive to not do so.

      The Barbarian, however, is a melee frontliner meaning that they are usually as likely to be attacked as the Fighter and Paladin, only with a far higher likelihood of actually being struck. Given the relative frailty of 1st-level adventurers, even the mighty Barbarian will likely go down as a result of this. And that’s not even to mention the true squish of the party: the Rogue! 

     Let’s run through the scenario, our 4 adventurers: Dru Berrymore the Elven Druid, Tenacious B the Fairy Bard,  Gymli the Dwarf Barbarian and Jon the Tabaxi Cat Burglar are waylaid by a Goblin ambush on their way to deliver supplies to the frontier settlement of Phandalin. 

    They get lucky, despite having no combat experience, with a +4 bonus to his perception check Dru was able to detect the goblin ambush with minimal luck. Because they were detected by Dru, all combatants roll initiative as normal. Gymli, since he is the only one with less than a +2 to his DEX, he will most likely wind up second last (after all the Goblins, Tenacious B and Dru Berrymore, but beats 1 goblin)… which he did. Despite being the resident melee combat specialist, Gymli’s battle reflexes seem to lag behind Dru and Tenacious B’s both in detecting and responding to ambushes. 

    Nevertheless, the party trusts Gymli to hold the line, Tenacious B and Dru retreat to safe positions from which to gradually chip away at the Goblins and John hides in the cart to snipe from the shadows. Two of the goblins descend on the cart and flank Gymli while 1 stays ranged with his shortbow. Just Gymli’s luck, this table uses the incredibly popular flanking house-rule granting the goblins advantage on their attack. It is worth noting that even if Gymli were a Fighter with a 19 AC, the probability of not being hit with the goblins making 2 attacks at advantage would not be on his side, because his AC is low however odds are both Goblins will hit him (~71%). Because Gymli has not had his turn yet he is not yet raging and thus has to take all 10 damage on the chin. Seeing that he is wounded, the 3rd Goblin finishes him off from a distance with the shortbow. 

     This leaves Tenacious B with a choice, use their spell slot to try and kill the Goblins engaging the party in melee with a casting of the Thunderwave spell or use Healing Word to revive Gymli so that he can actually have his turn. If it goes anything like how when I first played this adventure, Gymli himself will be the one to suggest the former because “I’m just gonna immediately get knocked down again anyways” 

Is ONED&D Fixing The Problem? 

     Surprisingly, ONED&D’s Playtest 7 did happen to contain one of the ideas we have for fixing the Barbarian starting AC problem which was granting a shield as part of the starting equipment. This is really about all that we can say has been addressed in terms of Hit Die and AC unfortunately even leaving the Monk, the class who was most under-supported, completely unchanged in this regard with only a minor damage boost at level 1. Now, we aren’t frowning at damage boosts. As we’ll get into, damage is also one way in which the martials are disadvantaged but we believe it is only one element of the problem that eats up way too much of people’s attention and the recent playtests only reinforce this belief. Now UA8 has buffed Monk considerably but the hit die and AC remain unchanged, the main tanking boost being that they now have many options for self-healing and damage reduction. Fighter has received a change to Second Wind that turns it into an ability that has multiple uses with more as they level but they simultaneously receive abilities that force them to dig into their resource pool for healing in order to get support on skill checks. Rogue also received nothing to boost their sturdiness but this is the martial we would argue least needed to be survivable in melee. 

What is Our Solution? 

      Our solution is likely going to be controversial, but we believe the roleplay idiosyncrasies cannot be ironed out without nerfing casters. Every martial class has to be comprehensively overhauled with the realities of the frontline in mind but we do for now have a few band-aids that can help alleviate the problems at level 1.

1.  Barbarians should be granted a shield in their starting equipment and at level 2, “Danger Sense” should be boosted to grant advantage on initiative to ensure that they have a chance to activate their rage to make up for their low AC. 
2. Monks should have their hit die raised to a d10 and be given light armour proficiency to give them a bit more flexibility if their WIS is too low to support a decent AC. At Level 2, “Step of the Wind” should be made free similar to the Rogues “Cunning Action”. This also boosts the roleplay experience of the remaining “Flurry of Blows” and “Patient Defense” as they guarantee the Monk feels like they are making a high-stakes gamble trading away their ability to disengage safely to lock down an important position for the party or attempt to kill a dangerous enemy. 
3. Rogues’ variety of skills in combat and ability to fight from a range mean they need minimal buffs in early level combat. We think Rogues only need medium armour proficiency as a backup if the table is rolling stats and they wind up rolling low. 
4. Then, critically, the majority of casters should have their hit die reduced, this resolves the roleplay issue of the a majority of casters being as physically sturdy as the Monk and Rogue and actually encourages the casters to play safely making it feel less pointless when the martial is sinking shots for the casters. This ensures that casters have a trade-off in exchange for playing at a range. The proposed revisions to hit die are as follows:

Hit Die & Saves 

One of the largest issues raised by the DnD 5e community (and TTRPG community more broadly) is the issue of the divide between the two main playstyles: spellcasting classes and the martial classes (Barbarian, Fighter, Monk and Rogue). Nearly everyone who plays 5e, beginners and veterans, recognize the issue but there does exist a significant debate on the nature and size of the divide. As avid players ourselves, we have our own experiences and ideas regarding the complaints that others have noted. However, many of these complaints are part of a larger issue.  DnD 5e’s core problem is that the core mechanics and class features force martials to make trade-offs more often than casters. In other words, casters can do many of the things that martials can do (and way way way more) without having to give-up anything meaningful to do so, while whenever a martial wants to do something a caster does, there is often a cost or risk associated with it.

      In this series, we will be exploring how this root issue manifests and how deeply ingrained the divide really is, and proposing solutions in every layer of the game. In this article, we’ll be tackling the myth that the problem is largely limited to later levels. The complaint often goes that martials don’t so much start off on the wrong foot as they do gradually taper off, usually said to be around after level 5. While the divide definitely does get worse as the game goes, it is our view that this approach can lead people to miss a lot of the core system issues the divide is rooted in. In order to address this, we will start our analysis right from the character creation process in order to explain how the divide affects the game from the very start.

Stats as Features: How the World Favours Casters  

       A big part of the reason why people think the first 5 levels are comparatively balanced is because a lot of analysis overfocuses on combat. Which is completely fair, the vast plurality of the game’s rules regard combat more than the other two pillars of roleplay and exploration and nearly every class and subclass feature is framed in terms of its combat potential especially if you are playing a martial. But, we have to keep in mind that combat is supposed to be one pillar of this roleplaying game, and in that regard, the divide exists straight from the get go. 

      Contrary to popular conception, large elements of the divide are evident from the character creation process and are baked into the system all the way down to the very stats the characters use and the skills they correlate to.  Skill checks, being the way we decide events in the non-combat elements of the game, define gameplay in exploration and roleplay throughout the entire game and are unfortunately set up in a way that disadvantages martials. A big part of this comes from the way the skill system is set up such that each skill is supplemented by a different stat. This means that you apply your stat mod to skills regardless of whether or not you are proficient. For example, if you are a Barbarian with a +4 strength you automatically gain that bonus to all strength checks including when you are not proficient. This mechanic itself is excellent as it works really well for roleplay, if you are strong it makes sense that you are automatically somewhat good at all strength based tasks relative to the scrawny wizard. The problem however is the actual distribution of what skills attach to what stats. Each class has different stats which they are encouraged to prioritize in order to be effective in their role, separating the stats into two general groups, the mental stats which the casting classes use for their spells and the physical stats which both groups use but are the main stats for martials. This is where the imbalance comes into play, the skills tied to the “mental” stats in the game such as wisdom, intelligence and charisma vastly outnumber the skills tied to the physical stats. There’s a good reason why Bards, Paladins, Warlocks, Clerics and Wizards all have popular social stereotypes regarding the kind of roleplay antics they may get up to whilst the Fighter is simply seen as “boring” socially or worse are simply stereotyped as being a social liability as with the “Stupid Barbarian”. 

The stat-skill distribution is as follows: 

      As we see, the physical stats just don’t come up outside combat being they supplement only 4 of the game’s 18 abilities. On top of that, 3 of those 4 physical skills come exclusively from dexterity, which is a boon to the dex-based martials like Monk and Rogue but actually expands the martial-caster gap further. 

      The reason for this goes back to why we said physical stats are universally necessary. DEX is the stat that defines one’s base Armour Class when unarmoured or wearing light or medium armour. Due to low armour proficiencies, this makes DEX the physical stat many casters are most likely to spec into after constitution and the physical stat half the martials, Fighters and Barbarians, are LEAST likely to spec into. While it may be argued STR comes up often as the modifying stat for most weapons but the caster’s key stat comes up as often for them in combat in modifying their save DCs and spell attack rolls. In play, this effectively means that the vast majority of skills are more useful for a caster as it is for a martial as they are more likely to have the higher modifier in the relevant stat.  

      This means casters that even though most classes get to pick the same number of proficiencies and get a short list to pick from the casters tend to have way more flexibility. We can see this pretty clearly when we look at the likelihood that your level 1 proficiency options line up with the stats you are already speced into. 

Likelihood that proficiency options match main stat bonus:  

    Averaged out, casters can expect about half of their proficiency options to line up with the stat that has their highest modifier whilst martials can only expect about a quarter of their options to line up similarly. This combined with the low number of skills using physical stats means that despite getting to pick the same number of proficiencies, martials often wind up with less than casters as they will likely wind up having to pick a proficiency that does not line up with their abilities. For example, Barbarians usually prioritize STR, CON and DEX but only 1 of the 7 proficiency options they receive uses any of these stats, forcing them to pick a proficiency in a skill tied to a stat they are poorly in such as perception, which will inevitably wind up seeing them outclassed by a caster who has the same proficiency but with a high bonus to the relevant stat. 

     This may seem not too drastic but being a team game, this can often result in the martials not even getting to use most skills they are semi-skilled at unless a story beat requires them specifically to make that specific check. In other words, martials get weaker proficiencies and less opportunities to use them in most games.

         Even the so-called “skill monkey” class, the Rogue, is impacted severely by this. While on the surface the rogue feels very powerful, with their 4 skill proficiencies and expertise, even this doesn’t really compete with the incredibly powerful abilities granted to the skill-focussed casters like druids and bards. It in fact barely competes with even the non-skill focussed casters. Take for example, a cleric who spams the Guidance cantrip. Guidance adds a d4 to any skill check which when used on yourself only has 2 limits: a vocal component which prevents you using it in social checks and the fact that constantly announcing you cast guidance is fucking annoying to everyone else at the table. Mathematically, this is the equivalent to proficiency in every skill with very very few areas where you wouldn’t be able to cast it on yourself. Add this to the Cleric’s natural aptitude for all wisdom skills and you have a powerful skill monkey that effectively outcompetes the rogue who is something of a one-trick pony in comparison.  

Problem in Context #1: Skill Modifiers upon Character Creation 

       As an example, let us assume a team of 4 beginners. None of them know the game well so for simplicity they’ve gone for standard array, the route recommended by Wizards of the Coast for quick builds, to define their stats and have not yet decided anything other than their class yet. This gives each of them a set array of values for the stats of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 or +2 to two stats, +1 to an additional two, one neutral stat and one -1. They have also consulted the internet as to which stats to prioritize and deprioritize for their classes picking the most basic recommended stat distributions for their class. 

This team consists of a Druid, a Bard, a Rogue and a Barbarian and they each wind up arranging their stats as follows: 

      Remember, this is before proficiencies, races and backgrounds which all shake up the bonuses even further have been accounted for. Being that the Druid and Bard have every skill tied to their main stat they very well may come out of the character creation process with multiple +4’s on top of their wealth of +2s. 

      Now, the Rogue gets two expertises which may net them two +6s if they choose DEX-based skills but it won’t be long before the Bard does the same with their CHA-based skills in Lvl 3 on top of eliminating all of their negative skill modifiers at lvl 2.  

The Mental-Physical Divide: How the Game Makes Martials Dumb (and makes casters perfect)

    One can argue that roleplay is the responsibility of the player not the build but what these differences effectively mean is that the world itself favours casters. The caster has more freedom to demand a difficult potentially game-changing check due to the increased confidence in success. They have naturally better social skills meaning they are essentially favoured by the NPCs. They will have a wider range of skills which they are naturally adept in without needing proficiency which means they are more likely to be the one who gets to rise up to the challenge when a check is called for a skill that no one in the party is proficient in. 

   This limits the potential merely putting more effort into roleplay as a martial can have as, being a game, checks tend to have consequences for failure. This means that regardless of the character’s backstories, the Druid and Bard are pushed to the front of social encounters to make up for the party’s poor social skills if the party fears an upcoming skill check and naturally pushes out the Rogue and Barbarian from engaging socially outside of the party.

   In our experience, this situation leaves martials often choosing proficiencies less to be GOOD at a skill but merely to not feel punished for the game not effectively accounting for the skills they should have. 

   Hilariously, this winds up meaning that the casters are better at many of the things we associate with martial tropes in real-life. Take for example the perception skill, most commonly used for detecting traps and ambushes. The Druid will naturally have a +2 to this even if they have no previous combat or adventuring experience. This means they are at minimum, as good as the party’s actual martial frontliner the Barbarian and most likely better. The Druid is better at detecting ambushes and surviving frugally in the wilds and resisting fear. The Bard is naturally more intimidating than the Barbarian if the DM doesn’t step in. 

This guy shouldn’t have to ask the DM for permission to be intimidating. 

    The same applies vice versa as well, though less commonly, where a caster will be so content with the natural layout of their modifiers that they’ll choose a skill they are not necessarily keyed towards for their proficiency just to round out their character. For example, the Druid can afford to take the INT-based religion skill as they are rounded out already in most skills by their high WIS and DEX. 

Things we’ve heard players say (spot the difference): 

“I’ll take perception. My wisdom is low but it makes sense I’d have a positive MOD trying to make sure we don’t get ambushed” – Norg-Mal Hue-maan, Human Fighter 

“I guess I’ll take perception, seems good to have.” – Catiana Grande, Tabaxi Bard

 In several of the games that we have played, both experienced players and new players naturally gravitated to the outcomes highlighted. New D&D players especially exhibited the behavior of pushing the casters into NPC interactions to avoid negative outcomes.

ONED&D: Is WotC fixing the problem? 

     While we love playtest 8, as does much of the community, this is one of the few issues that still remains barely addressed if not worsened by the newest test. Whilst the playtests are still occurring and the situation may change, to this point we unfortunately do not believe that the problem is being resolved. Things like the Fighter’s Tactical Mind, which allows them to expend a use of their reworked Second Wind to add a d10 to an ability check, provide a slight boost but come at a hefty cost. Assuming the game recommended two short rests per day, one use of Tactical Mind consumes a quarter of the Fighter’s available emergency HP Pool to provide an average of about +5 to one skill check. This effectively means the Fighter is trading combat efficacy for roleplay utility, something they can’t afford to do as much as you may think as we’ll try to illustrate in our future articles. In comparison, Guidance provides an average of +2 absolutely free and has now been buffed with a range of 10 feet allowing you to boost allies with it more often. Once again, the caster does not have a trade-off to be able to do this while the martial must make a decision to support an action that they were already in a bad spot to do… 

      The Barbarian in line with the rest of its design philosophy received a buff that is tied to its rage. The new reskin of the Tasha-era feature Primal Knowledge allows them to add their STR mod to certain skill checks such as perception as well as granting them an additional proficiency. This is pretty solid when being used and also hilarious flavourwise but still has huge issues. Rage is not something a Barbarian is likely to activate outside combat, especially since they have so few even with the buffs to how many they get. This means that the vast majority of skill checks won’t benefit from this other than checks in combat and between combats during dungeon crawls. Mind you, the Barbarian getting keyed up into a state of hyperawareness that makes them better at these important combat related skills, such as setting and detecting ambushes, is great and amazingly flavourful, but it still doesn’t answer the core question: what is the Barbarian doing when the party isn’t fighting? 

      The Rogue has remained pretty much unchanged in this regard with the exception of Reliable Talent, which allows them to treat any roll below 10 as a 10 in skills they have expertise in, being lowered to level 7. This is an excellent change but still doesn’t really address many of the issues we raised in this article with regards to the Rogue’s comparative lack of flexibility and consistent all-level usefulness to their caster skill monkey counterpart, the Bard. 

     Finally, while we love the playtest 8 Monk, the issues with regards to roleplay utility have actually gotten worse with this newest draft. While the old mid-game ribbon features were well… ribbon features, which constituted no substantial buff to the Monk’s sturdiness and combat prowess, they at least attempted to give the Monk a few unique roleplay niches. These features were terrible, but that was not because Monk didn’t need roleplay features, but because these features were too situational to be useful and also created a gap in the Monk’s power progression. Our view is these features did not warrant removing in order to make room for combat buffs but should have remained and also been buffed and better yet, also moved down to earlier levels of play. 

       While it may seem like we are being wet towels here, after all they are getting buffed, the reason we are being so critical is that these buffs wouldn’t be sufficient to close the roleplay utility gaps in 5e let alone meet the massive escalation the casters are receiving in these same playtests. The Druid who has been nerfed on some levels (thank God), has actually potentially received a gamechangingly powerful optional buff with them now being given the choice to trade out their medium armour and shield proficiency for the ability to add their WIS mod to all INT checks. The fact this is a straight buff to a similar option given Cleric in UA6, which only added INT-based Religion checks, likely means the response to this option in this survey will decide which version of the choice both classes get. While this at least asks for a tradeoff from the casting class, decreasing combat durability in exchange for greatly increased roleplay utility, the AC tradeoff is pretty affordable for casters who fight from a distance as we’ll expand on in our next article in this series. And the potential benefits to this tradeoff are HUGE. Recall that WIS and INT are tied for the stat with the corresponding skills at 5. This means with this feature alone, a Druid or Cleric is applying their highest stat modifier to 10, or 56%, of the games 18 abilities. 

      Let’s say that our hypothetical party of new players from earlier decides to try the playtest material. If the Druid decides to pick the “Magician” option, they go from having 8 +2’s, 5 +1’s, 1 -1 and 5 -4’s to 13 +2’s, 0 +1’s, 1 -1, and 5 -4’s. Keep in mind, Magician also gives an extra cantrip, increasing the likelihood the Druid will have the space to pick up Guidance to further enhance their skill checks. Now reliant on light armour, their AC at lvl 1 is probably 12, only 3 points behind the Barbarian who is taking most of the shots for the party up at the frontline. In exchange, all this playtest really gives the Barbarian for skills is one additional proficiency at level 3, which doesn’t really help since they probably already took the one proficiency that lines up with their best stat, and the rage bonus which we’ve already explained is quite situational.  

Conclusions: How do we fix this? 

      Martials need features that create unique ways for them to engage in the roleplay elements of the game. Rogue is a good example of that direction with expertise and reliable talent to subsidize them but the other martials get next to nothing. The Monk’s focus on wisdom grants them a bit more skill versatility but they only have 3 options tied to their key stats given to them as options, those being insight, stealth and acrobatics and no good social features beyond late-level ribbon features which only come up in incredibly niche scenarios. And this is just those martials who have something to contribute socially. What is necessary under the current skills system are the new features which allow for martials to consistently be good at the things the lore says they should be good at. Here our some of our proposed homebrew ideas to START and level the playing field in role-playing.

1) Rogues should get Jack of All Trades, it honestly fits them more lorewise and means that they can be an actual skill monkey to the largest extent anyone can be without magic. This gives the Rogue all the abilities related to skills Bards get so it is far from overpowered and ensures that the Rogue has no holes in its repertoire having at least a +1 to every skill assuming standard array. Since Jack of All Trades only applies to non-proficient skills it caps out at a +3. This means the Rogue can actually feel like the flexible skill monkeys with a modifier range probably from +1- +6 at early levels. Then, in later levels, they should receive an ability similar to the Fighter’s “Indomitable” that can allow them to circumvent failed ability checks a number of times equal to their DEX mod. 

2) Monks, Fighters and Barbarians should receive an additional proficiency of their choice allowing players to round out their characters a bit more and account for the proficiencies they feel their character should have the option of picking without forcing the player to dig through every background or DMs to personally rework class proficiencies to account for what they think the Martial classes should naturally know. For example, Monks confusingly lack the option for perception proficiency, this would allow Monk players to simply say that they feel they should have it and take it without needing to frustratingly build their race and background around a proficiency they feel they should have had by default. 

3) Monks, Barbarians and Fighters should all receive, at level 1, the 7th-level Champion Fighter feature “Remarkable Athlete” with the following modifications: “You add half your proficiency bonus to any ability check using STR, DEX or CON in which you are not already proficient and have a swimming and climbing speed equal to your walking speed. You also exhaust at half the normal rate and have advantage on hit die rolls to recover or gain hp.” This ability should allow martials to have the flexibility to choose other proficiencies and not be compelled to choose proficiencies within their main stats. Going back to the human fighter, Norg-mal, the cost of choosing Perception over Acrobatics is reduced so they feel less restricted when taking it. 

4) CON should be broadened out to account for mental fortitude allowing martials to use it to resist things like the charmed or frightened effects to account for casters being better at resisting the frightened condition.