(Google sheet link up top for clarity)
So I was thinking about the ever-popular debate about whether casters are underwhelming compared to martials, and I decided to do some comparisons. Namely, how does the base, resourceless damage of a blasting caster compare to that of various martial classes, and how would it look with certain common-sense tweaks:
1. having casting proficiency keep pace with martial proficiency by mimicking the 1-5-13 progression of a standard non-Fighter martial.
2. use of potency rune spell foci (i.e. +1 to attack when a martial would expect to get their first +1 weapon).
These simple fixes overcome the more glaring discrepancies, such as the level 5-6 and 13-14 gaps where casters can expect to hit 15-20% less often than the martials for no easily discernible reason.
Some have suggested that changes like this would make casters too strong. I agree that cantrip damage should lag behind martial damage, to make up for the caster's greater utility options and nova potential with leveled damage spells. However, I think the data here shows that these changes would likely make a caster feel like they're able to contribute more to combat, without making the Fighter or Ranger or Rogue feel at all useless.
For example, at present, a caster using Telekinetic Projectile at level 5 (+11 to hit) on a level 3 enemy deals 11.6 damage on average, while a two-handing Fighter (+16 to hit) and a Rogue (+14 to hit) with Sneak Attack on both hits will expect to do around 35 damage with the same two actions. This takes into account crits and MAP on the second attack. If we bring the caster's attack bonus up to the Rogue/Barbarian/Ranger's +14 at this level, their average damage becomes about 16. The caster gets to feel a little less like they miss all the time, but their damage still doesn't threaten the martial's dominance in the field of hitting things hard.
Hit/crit rate is based on the average Bestiary AC of enemies at Party Level-2 (representing a standard group foe) and Party Level (representing a more significant challenge). I used this for my sources - note that I think it only includes the original Bestiary, so later books may change the balance.
To go further into the ramifications beyond cantrips, I also included Hydraulic Push, one of the most straightforward ranged spell attack roll spells that uses a slot. As noted further down, the tweaked version stays sort of on par with the single-target damage of Fireball against a strong Reflex save, which is also roughly equivalent to a two-hander Fighter's damage, and the tweaked version is closer to Fireball against a weak Reflex save, which seems like a better deal - you want the single-target all-or-nothing spell to be a little stronger than your area effect when it hits, I'd think.
Because so many spells have saves, I also included spellcasters' chances to get a crit fail/fail/success/crit success from average enemies at PL and PL-2. I included some calculations for Electric Arc (the main save cantrip) and Fireball (the most classic big-damage leveled spell). Note that these both are attacks that can hit multiple enemies, so the more enemies you can fit in their area, the stronger they are. Fireball at the highest available level (notably, a limited resource) approximately keeps pace with a two-handed Fighter's resource-free two-action damage, and Electric Arc does about half that. But of course that's single-target damage, which demonstrates that area effects are really where casters tend to shine. I included a version where DCs also increase due to spell focus fundamental runes as well, make of that what you will - I don't it's necessary the way it feels with spell attack rolls. Note also that Hydraulic Push as-is lags significantly behind Fireball's single-target damage, and comes closer to matching it in the tweaked version.
I wanted to get a good representative sample of martials and compare their two-action average damage for each level to those of a cantrip-wielding caster. Note that these simulations take into account universal class features, but not any feats that vary from character to character such as Power Attack or different Debilitating Strikes, etc.
This is the base, resourceless damage making full use of base class features, so the Rogue would be able to get Sneak Attack on both hits, the Barbarian would be Raging, and the Ranger would be attacking their Hunted Prey to benefit from Hunter's Edge. The Rogue is a Thief to maximize damage, and the Barbarian is Fury Instinct since it's the most generic Instinct.
I hope you find this interesting, let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see or if you notice any mistakes I made. Thanks for reading!
