D&D 5E Should martial characters be mundane or supernatural?

[Minigiant]

A fighter is perfectly complete without a single magic item as far as I'm concerned. If the DM is not providing magical weapons and still throwing monsters that are immune to magic that must be defeated? No different than a DM regularly throwing wizards into anti-magic zones.

It's not a matter of competing and more that magic items are replacing mundane class feature.

A martial has no issue fighting a devil.

But a fighter shouldn't need to receive boot of speed to run faster and boots of striding and springing to jump farther. A normal human so trains physically for years would do so normally.

Magic items was a kludge to keep martials simple. And we just got used to it.

Much of the supernatural martial push is just the expansion of stapling those magic items to class features and then people scaling it past human limits.

Like I said way in the beginning, a high level mundane martial is possible. It just requires making a bunch of the weaker magic items class features and thus expanding the turns of martials to those of casters or even longer.

 

[Oofta]

Those are 2 completely different things as far as I'm concerned.

I've rarely seen an anti-magic zone in my many years of playing. Most campaigns have exactly zero.

I've regularly seen plenty of flying, or resistant/immune creatures, as well as creatures with abilities that can only be dealt with using magic (mummy rot or a Rakshasa's curse). Sure, the DM could cover their entire world in an anti-magic zone, if they really wanted to. But that's not remotely the same as cracking open the MM, finding a cool monster, and then realizing the party doesn't have the resources to deal with it, despite the CR being appropriate for their level, just because you don't have casters in the party.

I've literally never found a monster and hesitated to use it because there are no martials in the party. If anything, a party like that usually makes me think "I'd better use at least 2 of these if this is going to be any kind of challenge".

I've literally never seen higher level PCs without at least magic weapons.

Edge cases are pointless.

 

[ECMO3]

I've regularly seen plenty of flying, or resistant/immune creatures,

Resistant is WAY different than immune and should not be included in this argument. A fighter without magic weapons can usually easily take down an enemy resistant to non-magic weapons and martials generally will still keep up with or even do more damage than their caster allies against such resistant foes.

As far as immune to non-magic weapons goes, that is not common at all. It happens, and it probably happens more than anti magic zones, but rarely still. However they are not the same, as a fighter without magic weapons can still usually damage creatures who are immune and while they can't keep up with casters against these foes can generally damage these foes better than Wizards can damage enemies in a non-magic zone.

This of course assumes that they actually do not have magic weapons. Even in that edge case against foes immune to their weapons they can still be useful and effective.

 

[Oofta]

It's not a matter of competing and more that magic items are replacing mundane class feature.

A martial has no issue fighting a devil.

But a fighter shouldn't need to receive boot of speed to run faster and boots of striding and springing to jump farther. A normal human so trains physically for years would do so normally.

Magic items was a kludge to keep martials simple. And we just got used to it.

Much of the supernatural martial push is just the expansion of stapling those magic items to class features and then people scaling it past human limits.

Like I said way in the beginning, a high level mundane martial is possible. It just requires making a bunch of the weaker magic items class features and thus expanding the turns of martials to those of casters or even longer.

The only reason we have monsters that are immune to nonmagical weapons is because the game has magical weapons. A +1 weapon in no way alters the nature of the fighter.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've literally never seen higher level PCs without at least magic weapons.

Edge cases are pointless.

Have you ever seen a high level martial that isn't well suited to dealing with flying enemies? Have you ever seen a high level martial that doesn't have easy access to remove curse for dealing with mummy rot and similar effects?

 

[Oofta]

Have you ever seen a high level martial that isn't well suited to dealing with flying enemies? Have you ever seen a high level martial that doesn't have easy access to remove curse for dealing with mummy rot and similar effects?

I've also seen high level wizards that were ill equipped to deal with enemies. So?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not sure what this thing about flying enemies is. Bring a bow. And longbow has far longer range than most (any?) damage spells.

I get that if you're Str-based, you'd rather attack with it, but it is not like the bow will be completely useless.

Though the point made earlier about the ranges of throwing weapons was excellent, and a higher strength should increase their range. There also could be feats or class features that increased it further.

 

[Minigiant]

The only reason we have monsters that are immune to nonmagical weapons is because the game has magical weapons. A +1 weapon in no way alters the nature of the fighter.

That's haves nothing to do what I said.

The core is that D&D martial doesn't even match reality. It's less than to be simple for, quoting Jeremy Crawford, "new players" and "tired players".

All martials should have a speed boost, a movement feature, and a good melee weapon attack and good ranged weapon attack.

Magic items is a kludge to fix these missing elements.

 

[Oofta]

That's haves nothing to do what I said.

The core is that D&D martial doesn't even match reality. It's less than to be simple for, quoting Jeremy Crawford, "new players" and "tired players".

All martials should have a speed boost, a movement feature, and a good melee weapon attack and good ranged weapon attack.

Magic items is a kludge to fix these missing elements.

Okay. I disagree with all of that.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I've also seen high level wizards that were ill equipped to deal with enemies. So?

What were those enemies, that the high level wizard was ill equipped to deal with, exactly? Did the wizard have to face them regularly? Might they be an edge case?

There are plenty of creatures in the higher CRs with flight, and/or abilities that can only be countered by magic.