this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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I think that the best thing about tabletop games is that you are not bound by someone else's rules and can decide on the spot what works and what doesn't. It makes for more interesting plays that just adhere to the words written on the page.
A few years ago, me and my party were stuck in the sewers with giant invisible spiders stalking us. When they attacked us, the Paladin threw some water around so that the water hitting the invisible bodies would make them visible. There's no specific rule for that, but it made for a cool moment.
At the same time, even if Firebolt explicitly states that it sets objects on fire and Investiture of Flame doesn't, if the Sorcerer wants to burn stuff with it, I'll allow it.
From experience, the only way to somewhat balance martials and casters is to either give the martials broken stuff, or play homebrew classes that actually care about giving them interesting features to play with.
Allowing the players to interact with the environment using their tools (as long as they don't specifically infringe on established rules) doesn't change the power dynamics between casters and non-casters. Sure, it technically increases the utility of casters a bit more, but chances are that they have countless tools for the job anyway. The martials are still eating dirt miles behind them.
I think that’s a big strength of tabletops too, but I sometimes wish people would adhere a bit more to the rules, because while some things are not covered by them, changing the things that are is a good way to get me to be very hesitant to do anything because I can’t rely on achieving anything close to the intended outcome if I can’t rely on the rules.
Balancing martials and casters is easy. All you have to do is sell your D&D books for Draw Steel books.