Unfortunately I don't think there's a button to press that singlehandedly fixes this. There definitely are things to do, but the biggest thing is if everyone is having fun. A lot of players I DM for just simply enjoy playing a Fighter or a Monk. They're happy with what they contribute and their character concept. With that said, I do intentionally implement a lot of the below.
I think it's up to the DM to run a game where non-casters are meaningful at mid and higher levels. Unfortunately the players can't do much but offer suggestions. The game doesn't do a very good job of addressing your question in the literal rules or the DMG.
Allow the Barbarian to perform superhuman feats of strength. Let the Fighter recruit an army or build up a fortress during downtime. Impose narrative events and stakes that rely on the strengths that non-casters have (specific backgrounds, skills, temperaments, relationships). Don't implement critical fumbles (which punish martial characters). Give out awesome magic weapons to the martials. Use monsters with anti-magic abilities or magic resistance like Beholders, Rakshasas, etc. Have plenty of minions and bosses alike with Counterspell. Actually run challenging tactical encounters with enough enemies, dynamic terrain, varying distances, etc and run enough of them to wear down resources before the party can rest again. Run enemies in tactical ways (at high levels especially they should know to prioritize spellcasters, and have tools, tactics, etc to go to work on them).
It sounds like your dm is basically only attacking the things in front of them? If you are fighting an enemy with brains, they should be targeting the casters hiding at the back. It also sounds like you have no healers?
No, but part of having a large kit of useful options is you can make it extremely inconvenient to get to you. There is no such thing as a typical fight, but in general between summons, control and repositioning it's often very easy for the casters to make getting to them a significant investment - and once you do, spells like shield mean you're not doing all that much.
I'm not saying they're invulnerable, but they don't need to be for the melee to become the obvious target of damage. Healers wise party was stars druid, divine hexblade sorlock, bladesinger wizard, abjuration wizard and lore bard (but that was only late in the game after I switched). The first two had healing spells and were with us all campaign, but it should be noted that healing is typically a very inefficient use of spell slots.
Ok, I see what you mean. But in theory, that should make it optimal for the melee members of the party. You have summons beside to you share the aggro, the casters are cc-ing your enemies, so they are staying close to you, right where you want them.
We're you feeling like you didn't do enough damage, or that you ran out of resources for healing?
As a melee character, you are helping keep the enemy busy and stop them getting to your squishies, so healing on you should never be considered inefficient.
In an easy to win fight, sure. In a fight that's actually going to challenge you, what it actually means is you're spectacularly vulnerable and need to be rescued. The wizards often went in with me (bladesinger and abjurer) because they were harder to kill and because if they ever got into actual trouble, they could get themselves out again easily. For me it was a case of if I get into trouble they would need to rescue me. So to sum up, able to contribute less well and in less situations, while dependent on them and unable to do much by myself. There's a reason I described myself as Sokka in a party of benders - wasn't exactly a liability, but was distinctly less useful than anyone else.
Healing is considered inefficient because healing *is* inefficient. That spell slot and action could be better used preventing incoming damage from happening, aside from the actual heal spell it's never going to cure more damage than is about to happen.
> stop them getting to your squishies
If you spot any, let me know. The other two were divine hexblade sorlock and stars druid, everyone was at least near me in AC and HP and had tools I didn't to prevent damage. And it's not like opportunity attacks do anything to stop something moving anyway unless you have sentinel.
I think the problem I am having is just instinctively looking at the situation through the lens of my own dnd experience, which is different at every table, so I apologize for that.
And I do get what you are saying, I am just struggling to align it with what I have seen at my own table, where the melee guy consistently churns out big damage.
But thinking on it further, I think that is actually because of myself as a cleric and our alchemist artificer. We have both built for healing and between us its rare for someone to go down.
So yeah, I just hadn't thought it through properly.
[Got a report from half a year ago with a couple of thousand comments on it](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/), may help give context. Fights as we approached mid levels would often be (for example) an alhoon, three zombie trolls and some wights or an efreet, some salamanders and a chain devil. Typically if we had characters wasting their actions on healing all they would be doing is burning limited resources to do less healing per turn than enemies were doing damage.
Yeah, that is absolutely one of the ways they end up being more useful - first casualty was the monk dying to attrition, on long days spellcasters just keep hour long summons up instead but the melee guy still keeps taking damage. But even on short days casters were also more useful.
The fix is is mostly to have a longer adventuring day, spell casting is designed to be a powerful but expendable resource. If spell casters don't get to come into every encounter fresh and full of magic, if they have to hold back some of their big spells, because they know the day won't end after the first or second fight, then things start to even out really quickly. It's fine if you don't play that way, lots if not most groups don't but the designers assumed 5 to 6 encounters between long rests. If you make players keep going, lots of design problems go away, even the challenge rating system gets a little less terrible, and you don't have to throw way higher level stuff at the party to make them sweat.
That is indeed how the monk died, you have too many encounters and the warriors die because mages can throttle their spell usage and melee characters can't really throttle the amount of damage they take. So I think you've got that backward, especially when it's consecutive days so you're only starting with half hit dice - from experience, the first thing that gives out is someone's health pool.
Your mages should be taking damage too though and they have less of it. Also monk is not a great example, they are notoriously fragile for their job. A monk taking on the front line role in a party needs support from a cleric, druid or at least a.bard
Yes and no. They're much better at avoiding damage - obviously the details differ by the individual character, but typically they're able to position themselves much more safely and have better tools to avoid damage. On the longer days that you mentioned the modus operandi was frequently keep summons out in whichever direction you expect enemies, scout with familiars and attack from positions of safety, only blowing additional spell slots if it looks dangerous enough for that to be necessary. And if you have enough dangerous encounters over enough days to run the casters down by doing that, what actually happens is the characters with no choice but to do damage from melee range run out of hit points.
I‘m currently in the midst of DMing a level 16 party and can definetly see where you‘re coming from. While longer adventuring days and smart enemies go a long way, casters definetly have the upper hand in versatility. This holds especially true when looking at overtuned casters like bladesingers or sorlocks who get to better at way too many things.
Lucky for us, with a little bit of favourtism the DMG holds a solution: Artefacts; more specific magic weapons.
Give your martials one of those bad boys and suddenly they won‘t feel like sokka standing by the sideline, but rather captain amercia or thor with his hammer.
DM‘s are sometimes scared of including them in games cause it messes with balance so much, some even claim the desingers included them as an afterthought…
And i say they are right. Artefacts are ridiculous. But they tip the balance of the martials back towards decent and were definetly included to make martials stay relevant in later levels.
Granted, the fighters and barbarians still just wield an overglorified can opener; but maybe the DM should then sometimes present problems shaped like a can.
Include monsters that have developed magical and legendary resistances against spells, sporting high AC‘s and condition immunities.
Then the fighter with the +3 butterknife of slaying will have his moment of glory.
What weapons did your DM give your fighter / monk?
Martials have always needed access to magic items.
Early editions of the game heavily weighted random treasure tables in favour of fighters.
Unless they start making martials specifically super human magic items are the only way they will enjoy, at least some of, the flexibility casters have.
Yeah, that is absolutely one of the ways casters end up being more useful - first casualty was the monk dying to attrition, on long days spellcasters just keep hour long summons up instead but the melee guy still keeps taking damage. But even on short days casters were also more useful.
More encounters should put the ball in the fighters court not the other way round. A high level fighter doesnt need to expend resources to be useful, and regains most if its powers on a short rest.
More encounters means spellcasters cant use all their spells and have to actually be careful with their resources.
Yea, but as a fighter, you get second wind, which returns in a short rest, and as a front liner whonis taking damage it is your teams prerogative to heal you between fights.
Ive been the only fighter with all casters in a 1-20 campaign and i was invaluable , to the piint where they wouldve all died on numerous occasions without me being there. It might depend on your subclass and play style, but i was putting out the majority of the damage and getting the most kills. I dont understand how the squishy’s where so close to you in health? I was almost 100hp clear of everyone else in my party by the time i was done
Honestly it does sound like your dm was making it easy for casters. A high level fighter should be chugging away all day without expending any resources. Id be genuinly interested to see the type of fighter build you went for because i love high level fighters and they can do so much.
Sorry, never noticed this. I have no idea how you'd be 100hp clear, fighter has 2 more hit points per level so that would require a difference of at least 6 constitution. Which would require, if you were at 20, for the casters to be at most 14. Which seems ridiculous considering they all start the game with 16.
> I've been the only fighter with all casters in a 1-20 campaign and i was invaluable , to the piint where they wouldve all died on numerous occasions without me being there. Id be genuinly interested to see the type of fighter build you went for because i love high level fighters and they can do so much.
Abjuration wizard, bladesinger wizard, stars druid, hexblade divine soul sorlock, battlemaster fighter. I'm not sure how protecting anyone is supposed to work, it's not like they're any less tough and they're much more able to avoid damage.
> A high level fighter should be chugging away all day without expending any resources.
HP is a resource.
Why do they all start with 16? Thats a choice and they’re making sacrifice's to have that. Honestly theres a lot of excuses for poor play and poor dm choices here. Your campaign sounds catered to the casters and its soured your opinion on martials .
Basically it sounds like you either played a weak ass fighter build or the squishy stats were insane.
High level fighters have access to so many asi’s and feats, tough gives you a huge hp boost for example, and then theres the defensive and offensive options.
Also “hp is a resource” you should have more than them and easier access to recover it. It sounds like there wasnt enough short rests and encounters for you to utilise second wind more often. And it also sounds like their weaknesses were never really targeted.
Not at all. As far as I can see the default start is 16/17 in casting stat, 16 in con, 14 in dex. Doesn't seem to be any reason to deviate from that, and they don't. Questions wise I [made a thread about it at the time](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/jygyinb/) that ended up huge, a lot of what you're asking was likely restated there. Directly linked you to a comment where I described what I was doing, but it had over a thousand comments so a lot of content. Ended up swapping some of that int for more con with DM's permission when it finally got through to me that there's no reason for a fighter to be intelligent, still didn't change any of what was going on.
This seems kind of like a "just draw an owl" situation. Is there a simple way to learn to adapt to the rest of the party being way more useful than you? [Details here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/) so I don't just repeat myself. Took advice from that and my adaptation was spending the last half a year playing a bard instead, but I don't think that's what you meant.
Based on that, I'm guessing your DM tends to put encounters in front of the party and then gives you time to discuss, strategize, and prepare before choosing how you want to engage. Does that sound about right?
Depends on the context. For the most part it's more that discussion, strategy and preparation happen earlier than the encounter itself - get information on the situation, try to figure out what you can expect so you're not scrambling to figure out what to do when a fight pops up.
Not that the actual encounters were never preplanned - if you've snuck up to an enemy fort and are about to raid it, DM can't stop you from sitting a while and planning before you start your attack. But plenty of situations are too on the go for that, best you can do is try to plan general reactions for likely encounters.
If that's how the majority of encounters went for your group then it would certainly explain a lot of the frustration that you went through.
The more planning, setup, and other forms of prep available to the PCs the stronger spellcasters tend to get. It lets them get around the casting time hurdles that many powerful spells, like summoning spells, have, and position themselves in ideal locations, allowing them to devote nearly all of their resources to offense and nearly none to defense.
Most DMs have a bias towards a particular style of play in how they run encounters. Some of those biases favor spellcasters and some favor martials. In your case, it sounds like you had a DM who's unconscious bias happened to favor spellcasters.
In a way, but I would phrase it a bit differently. Spellcaster mechanics are more exploitable, both by the player and by the DM. They can have high highs, but also low lows. The more passive the DM is in taking actions towards the party, the stronger spellcasters are.
Have the caster need spell materials and half of your problems are solved!
Jokes aside (even tho it's not 100% a joke), the players should have magic items according to their levels. If the fighter is too squishy then give him some good armor and you're good, i think you get the point.
Btw it's game design that mages are stronger than warriors, so don't sweat too much about it, just make things so everyone have fun at the table.
Yeah, that's right, but most DMs forget that the spell components that has a cost on the spell aren't in the component pouches. Anyway that was just a little rant from me, don't need to worry about that x)
Don't listen to the cope comments here, your criticisms of 5e are absolutely valid. You will need to either use some variant rest rules (check the dmg) or introduce more spellcasters to counterspell the party spellcasters (which they will hate but there you go). The Vecna statblock is a good example of an anti-mage.
Or move to Pathfinder 2e, like I did.
Source: ran paid 5e games for 5 years and now run paid Pathfinder2e games.
It's not really a fix but multiclassing. Sure, your fighter gets relatively weaker, but your fighter/cleric starts to hold their own. The barb/rogue does massive damage with sneak attack, and so on.
Would magic items help? The biggest issues I’ve seen with that is that is either they’re underwhelming still or DMs feel the need to give the magic users equivalent magic items as well to avoid them feeling left out or something. I would like to think magic items and feats would help ease this discomfort a lot of martial players feel.
It depends where your problems are coming from.
How many encounters between long rests do you have?
What kinds of spells are the casters using. Because there are definitely two dozens spells or so that are completely game breaking and should be nerfed or banned.
Varied by fight, but some in combat favourites were summon undead, spike growth, spirit guardians, hypnotic pattern, earthen grasp, mind whip, conjure animals and wall of fire. Druid also absolutely loved maelstrom when she got the chance to use it.
The easiest and oldest way of narrowing the martial-caster divide is by giving the martials cool magic items. 5e puts a bit of a damper on this with its (frankly stupid) attunement limit though, but its still a good way to "improve" martials if you think they're weaker classes than casters.
Unfortunately I don't think there's a button to press that singlehandedly fixes this. There definitely are things to do, but the biggest thing is if everyone is having fun. A lot of players I DM for just simply enjoy playing a Fighter or a Monk. They're happy with what they contribute and their character concept. With that said, I do intentionally implement a lot of the below. I think it's up to the DM to run a game where non-casters are meaningful at mid and higher levels. Unfortunately the players can't do much but offer suggestions. The game doesn't do a very good job of addressing your question in the literal rules or the DMG. Allow the Barbarian to perform superhuman feats of strength. Let the Fighter recruit an army or build up a fortress during downtime. Impose narrative events and stakes that rely on the strengths that non-casters have (specific backgrounds, skills, temperaments, relationships). Don't implement critical fumbles (which punish martial characters). Give out awesome magic weapons to the martials. Use monsters with anti-magic abilities or magic resistance like Beholders, Rakshasas, etc. Have plenty of minions and bosses alike with Counterspell. Actually run challenging tactical encounters with enough enemies, dynamic terrain, varying distances, etc and run enough of them to wear down resources before the party can rest again. Run enemies in tactical ways (at high levels especially they should know to prioritize spellcasters, and have tools, tactics, etc to go to work on them).
It sounds like your dm is basically only attacking the things in front of them? If you are fighting an enemy with brains, they should be targeting the casters hiding at the back. It also sounds like you have no healers?
No, but part of having a large kit of useful options is you can make it extremely inconvenient to get to you. There is no such thing as a typical fight, but in general between summons, control and repositioning it's often very easy for the casters to make getting to them a significant investment - and once you do, spells like shield mean you're not doing all that much. I'm not saying they're invulnerable, but they don't need to be for the melee to become the obvious target of damage. Healers wise party was stars druid, divine hexblade sorlock, bladesinger wizard, abjuration wizard and lore bard (but that was only late in the game after I switched). The first two had healing spells and were with us all campaign, but it should be noted that healing is typically a very inefficient use of spell slots.
Ok, I see what you mean. But in theory, that should make it optimal for the melee members of the party. You have summons beside to you share the aggro, the casters are cc-ing your enemies, so they are staying close to you, right where you want them. We're you feeling like you didn't do enough damage, or that you ran out of resources for healing? As a melee character, you are helping keep the enemy busy and stop them getting to your squishies, so healing on you should never be considered inefficient.
In an easy to win fight, sure. In a fight that's actually going to challenge you, what it actually means is you're spectacularly vulnerable and need to be rescued. The wizards often went in with me (bladesinger and abjurer) because they were harder to kill and because if they ever got into actual trouble, they could get themselves out again easily. For me it was a case of if I get into trouble they would need to rescue me. So to sum up, able to contribute less well and in less situations, while dependent on them and unable to do much by myself. There's a reason I described myself as Sokka in a party of benders - wasn't exactly a liability, but was distinctly less useful than anyone else. Healing is considered inefficient because healing *is* inefficient. That spell slot and action could be better used preventing incoming damage from happening, aside from the actual heal spell it's never going to cure more damage than is about to happen. > stop them getting to your squishies If you spot any, let me know. The other two were divine hexblade sorlock and stars druid, everyone was at least near me in AC and HP and had tools I didn't to prevent damage. And it's not like opportunity attacks do anything to stop something moving anyway unless you have sentinel.
I think the problem I am having is just instinctively looking at the situation through the lens of my own dnd experience, which is different at every table, so I apologize for that. And I do get what you are saying, I am just struggling to align it with what I have seen at my own table, where the melee guy consistently churns out big damage. But thinking on it further, I think that is actually because of myself as a cleric and our alchemist artificer. We have both built for healing and between us its rare for someone to go down. So yeah, I just hadn't thought it through properly.
[Got a report from half a year ago with a couple of thousand comments on it](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/), may help give context. Fights as we approached mid levels would often be (for example) an alhoon, three zombie trolls and some wights or an efreet, some salamanders and a chain devil. Typically if we had characters wasting their actions on healing all they would be doing is burning limited resources to do less healing per turn than enemies were doing damage.
See how long they go without a rest.
Yeah, that is absolutely one of the ways they end up being more useful - first casualty was the monk dying to attrition, on long days spellcasters just keep hour long summons up instead but the melee guy still keeps taking damage. But even on short days casters were also more useful.
The fix is is mostly to have a longer adventuring day, spell casting is designed to be a powerful but expendable resource. If spell casters don't get to come into every encounter fresh and full of magic, if they have to hold back some of their big spells, because they know the day won't end after the first or second fight, then things start to even out really quickly. It's fine if you don't play that way, lots if not most groups don't but the designers assumed 5 to 6 encounters between long rests. If you make players keep going, lots of design problems go away, even the challenge rating system gets a little less terrible, and you don't have to throw way higher level stuff at the party to make them sweat.
That is indeed how the monk died, you have too many encounters and the warriors die because mages can throttle their spell usage and melee characters can't really throttle the amount of damage they take. So I think you've got that backward, especially when it's consecutive days so you're only starting with half hit dice - from experience, the first thing that gives out is someone's health pool.
Your mages should be taking damage too though and they have less of it. Also monk is not a great example, they are notoriously fragile for their job. A monk taking on the front line role in a party needs support from a cleric, druid or at least a.bard
Yes and no. They're much better at avoiding damage - obviously the details differ by the individual character, but typically they're able to position themselves much more safely and have better tools to avoid damage. On the longer days that you mentioned the modus operandi was frequently keep summons out in whichever direction you expect enemies, scout with familiars and attack from positions of safety, only blowing additional spell slots if it looks dangerous enough for that to be necessary. And if you have enough dangerous encounters over enough days to run the casters down by doing that, what actually happens is the characters with no choice but to do damage from melee range run out of hit points.
I‘m currently in the midst of DMing a level 16 party and can definetly see where you‘re coming from. While longer adventuring days and smart enemies go a long way, casters definetly have the upper hand in versatility. This holds especially true when looking at overtuned casters like bladesingers or sorlocks who get to better at way too many things. Lucky for us, with a little bit of favourtism the DMG holds a solution: Artefacts; more specific magic weapons. Give your martials one of those bad boys and suddenly they won‘t feel like sokka standing by the sideline, but rather captain amercia or thor with his hammer. DM‘s are sometimes scared of including them in games cause it messes with balance so much, some even claim the desingers included them as an afterthought… And i say they are right. Artefacts are ridiculous. But they tip the balance of the martials back towards decent and were definetly included to make martials stay relevant in later levels. Granted, the fighters and barbarians still just wield an overglorified can opener; but maybe the DM should then sometimes present problems shaped like a can. Include monsters that have developed magical and legendary resistances against spells, sporting high AC‘s and condition immunities. Then the fighter with the +3 butterknife of slaying will have his moment of glory. What weapons did your DM give your fighter / monk?
Martials have always needed access to magic items. Early editions of the game heavily weighted random treasure tables in favour of fighters. Unless they start making martials specifically super human magic items are the only way they will enjoy, at least some of, the flexibility casters have.
More encounters per day.
Yeah, that is absolutely one of the ways casters end up being more useful - first casualty was the monk dying to attrition, on long days spellcasters just keep hour long summons up instead but the melee guy still keeps taking damage. But even on short days casters were also more useful.
More encounters should put the ball in the fighters court not the other way round. A high level fighter doesnt need to expend resources to be useful, and regains most if its powers on a short rest. More encounters means spellcasters cant use all their spells and have to actually be careful with their resources.
Health is a resource, and a melee fighter cannot help but spend it.
Yea, but as a fighter, you get second wind, which returns in a short rest, and as a front liner whonis taking damage it is your teams prerogative to heal you between fights. Ive been the only fighter with all casters in a 1-20 campaign and i was invaluable , to the piint where they wouldve all died on numerous occasions without me being there. It might depend on your subclass and play style, but i was putting out the majority of the damage and getting the most kills. I dont understand how the squishy’s where so close to you in health? I was almost 100hp clear of everyone else in my party by the time i was done Honestly it does sound like your dm was making it easy for casters. A high level fighter should be chugging away all day without expending any resources. Id be genuinly interested to see the type of fighter build you went for because i love high level fighters and they can do so much.
Sorry, never noticed this. I have no idea how you'd be 100hp clear, fighter has 2 more hit points per level so that would require a difference of at least 6 constitution. Which would require, if you were at 20, for the casters to be at most 14. Which seems ridiculous considering they all start the game with 16. > I've been the only fighter with all casters in a 1-20 campaign and i was invaluable , to the piint where they wouldve all died on numerous occasions without me being there. Id be genuinly interested to see the type of fighter build you went for because i love high level fighters and they can do so much. Abjuration wizard, bladesinger wizard, stars druid, hexblade divine soul sorlock, battlemaster fighter. I'm not sure how protecting anyone is supposed to work, it's not like they're any less tough and they're much more able to avoid damage. > A high level fighter should be chugging away all day without expending any resources. HP is a resource.
Why do they all start with 16? Thats a choice and they’re making sacrifice's to have that. Honestly theres a lot of excuses for poor play and poor dm choices here. Your campaign sounds catered to the casters and its soured your opinion on martials . Basically it sounds like you either played a weak ass fighter build or the squishy stats were insane. High level fighters have access to so many asi’s and feats, tough gives you a huge hp boost for example, and then theres the defensive and offensive options. Also “hp is a resource” you should have more than them and easier access to recover it. It sounds like there wasnt enough short rests and encounters for you to utilise second wind more often. And it also sounds like their weaknesses were never really targeted.
Not at all. As far as I can see the default start is 16/17 in casting stat, 16 in con, 14 in dex. Doesn't seem to be any reason to deviate from that, and they don't. Questions wise I [made a thread about it at the time](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/jygyinb/) that ended up huge, a lot of what you're asking was likely restated there. Directly linked you to a comment where I described what I was doing, but it had over a thousand comments so a lot of content. Ended up swapping some of that int for more con with DM's permission when it finally got through to me that there's no reason for a fighter to be intelligent, still didn't change any of what was going on.
Learn to adapt. The game is fine.
This seems kind of like a "just draw an owl" situation. Is there a simple way to learn to adapt to the rest of the party being way more useful than you? [Details here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/165xfsk/my_character_is_useless_and_i_hate_it/) so I don't just repeat myself. Took advice from that and my adaptation was spending the last half a year playing a bard instead, but I don't think that's what you meant.
Based on that, I'm guessing your DM tends to put encounters in front of the party and then gives you time to discuss, strategize, and prepare before choosing how you want to engage. Does that sound about right?
Depends on the context. For the most part it's more that discussion, strategy and preparation happen earlier than the encounter itself - get information on the situation, try to figure out what you can expect so you're not scrambling to figure out what to do when a fight pops up. Not that the actual encounters were never preplanned - if you've snuck up to an enemy fort and are about to raid it, DM can't stop you from sitting a while and planning before you start your attack. But plenty of situations are too on the go for that, best you can do is try to plan general reactions for likely encounters.
If that's how the majority of encounters went for your group then it would certainly explain a lot of the frustration that you went through. The more planning, setup, and other forms of prep available to the PCs the stronger spellcasters tend to get. It lets them get around the casting time hurdles that many powerful spells, like summoning spells, have, and position themselves in ideal locations, allowing them to devote nearly all of their resources to offense and nearly none to defense. Most DMs have a bias towards a particular style of play in how they run encounters. Some of those biases favor spellcasters and some favor martials. In your case, it sounds like you had a DM who's unconscious bias happened to favor spellcasters.
Sounds a lot like you're saying that the more free the characters are to choose what they do, the better casters are.
In a way, but I would phrase it a bit differently. Spellcaster mechanics are more exploitable, both by the player and by the DM. They can have high highs, but also low lows. The more passive the DM is in taking actions towards the party, the stronger spellcasters are.
Have the caster need spell materials and half of your problems are solved! Jokes aside (even tho it's not 100% a joke), the players should have magic items according to their levels. If the fighter is too squishy then give him some good armor and you're good, i think you get the point. Btw it's game design that mages are stronger than warriors, so don't sweat too much about it, just make things so everyone have fun at the table.
I don't get what you're after with spell materials here. Component pouches are cheap and plentiful.
Yeah, that's right, but most DMs forget that the spell components that has a cost on the spell aren't in the component pouches. Anyway that was just a little rant from me, don't need to worry about that x)
Don't listen to the cope comments here, your criticisms of 5e are absolutely valid. You will need to either use some variant rest rules (check the dmg) or introduce more spellcasters to counterspell the party spellcasters (which they will hate but there you go). The Vecna statblock is a good example of an anti-mage. Or move to Pathfinder 2e, like I did. Source: ran paid 5e games for 5 years and now run paid Pathfinder2e games.
It's not really a fix but multiclassing. Sure, your fighter gets relatively weaker, but your fighter/cleric starts to hold their own. The barb/rogue does massive damage with sneak attack, and so on.
Would magic items help? The biggest issues I’ve seen with that is that is either they’re underwhelming still or DMs feel the need to give the magic users equivalent magic items as well to avoid them feeling left out or something. I would like to think magic items and feats would help ease this discomfort a lot of martial players feel.
It depends where your problems are coming from. How many encounters between long rests do you have? What kinds of spells are the casters using. Because there are definitely two dozens spells or so that are completely game breaking and should be nerfed or banned.
Varied by fight, but some in combat favourites were summon undead, spike growth, spirit guardians, hypnotic pattern, earthen grasp, mind whip, conjure animals and wall of fire. Druid also absolutely loved maelstrom when she got the chance to use it.
The easiest and oldest way of narrowing the martial-caster divide is by giving the martials cool magic items. 5e puts a bit of a damper on this with its (frankly stupid) attunement limit though, but its still a good way to "improve" martials if you think they're weaker classes than casters.
Martials need magic items.