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:
| Character Stat | Associated Skills | # of associated skills |
| Charisma (CHA) | Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion | 4/18 = 22% |
| Constitution (CON) | – | 0/18 = 0% |
| Dexterity (DEX) | Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth | 3/18 = 17% |
| Intelligence (INT) | Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion | 5/18 = 28% |
| Strength (STR) | Athletics | 1/18 = 5% |
| Wisdom (WIS) | Animal Handling, Insight, Perception, Medicine, Survival | 5/18 = 28% |
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:
| Class | # of Class Proficiencies | # of Class Proficiency Options | # of options tied to main stat |
| Artificer (INT Half-caster) | 2 | 7 | 4/7 = 57% |
| Barbarian (STR + CON Martial) | 2 | 6 | 1/6 = 17% |
| Bard (CHA Caster) | 3 | 18 (All) | 4/18 = 22% |
| Cleric (WIS Caster) | 2 | 5 | 2/5 = 40% |
| Druid (WIS Caster) | 2 | 8 | 5/8 = 62.5% |
| Fighter (STR or DEX Martial) | 2 | 8 | 1/8 = 12.5% |
| Monk (DEX + WIS Martial) | 2 | 6 | 3/6 = 50% |
| Paladin (STR + CHA Half-caster) | 2 | 6 | 3/6 = 50% |
| Ranger (DEX + WIS Half-caster) | 3 | 8 | 5/8 = 62.5% |
| Rogue (DEX Martial) | 4 | 11 | 3/11 = 27% |
| Sorcerer (CHA caster) | 2 | 6 | 3/6 = 50% |
| Warlock (CHA caster) | 2 | 7 | 2/7 = 28.5% |
| Wizard (INT caster) | 2 | 6 | 4/6 = 66% |
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:
| Class | Stat Arrangement | Skills with +2 | Skills with +1 | Skills with 0 | Skills with -1 |
| Druid | WIS, DEX, CON, INT, STR, CHA | 8 | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| Bard | CHA, DEX, CON, WIS, INT, STR | 7 | 5 | 5 | 1 |
| Rogue | DEX, CON, WIS, STR, INT, CHA | 3 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| Barbarian | STR, CON, DEX, CHA, WIS, INT | 1 | 7 | 5 | 5 |
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.
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.
