D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

CreamCloud0 said:

i'd rather martials were designed to be 'extraordinary' rather than 'supernatural', an exaggeration of what's possible with real world physics, you can produce wind pressure by swinging a sword IRL if only a little, enhancing that to produce a tangible damaging effect feels like it should be possible in fantasyland without justifying it with some form of magic to me.

again, ancient dragons manage to exist without using magic to prevent themselves crumpling under their own weight, i don't see why martials don't get that same fantasy world suspension of disbelief for their strength and abilities.

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They don't actually. From the 5e Sage Advice.

"You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:
• the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures.
• the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled.

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. "

When the fighter gets to that point he is engaging the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse's physics, creating a supernatural ability to swing a sword and cut things from 20 feet away. It's the non-traditional magic that 4e talks about.

TwoSix said:

Yea, I agree here.

I'm with @EzekielRaiden in that I'm totally good with a farmboy growing up into a demon-slaying badass who can swing a sword and destroy boulders with the shockwave. No problem with having One-Punch Man in D&D. I love the whole general idea of "martial power."

But being able to do those things is obviously supernatural. The terminology problem I have is that people often equate "supernatural" with "derived from magic, especially arcane magic". Being able to chop through boulders with your sword is not something that can be counterspelled, or removed by an antimagic field.

Within the fiction, the type of magic used by wizards, clerics, warlocks, etc., is only a small fraction of the expanse of magical and supernatural abilities that exist within the default D&D setting.

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Zoro of One Piece is a great example of a martial swordsman exceeding natural boundaries and going into the supernatural. And the background magic I mention above can't be counterspelled, just as you say it shouldn't be above.

Micah Sweet said:

Good point. I actually hate evasion as written, but taking away player power that right there in the book is a dangerous proposition, and often not worth it socially.

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From a narrative perspective, I hate this ability. But as a rogue player who remembers how squishy TSR thieves were, I find it a necessary ability. It's kinda that perfect example of the "cinematic martial" problem; it requires a lot of narrative justification every time it's used and it's hard to not find that justification without nerfing the class. I'd rather a rogue be able to disappear into the plane if Shadow for a moment to avoid damage than have them summon a table to dive behind, but I would hate to have the ability removed.

CreamCloud0 said:

i'd rather martials were designed to be 'extraordinary' rather than 'supernatural', an exaggeration of what's possible with real world physics, you can produce wind pressure by swinging a sword IRL if only a little, enhancing that to produce a tangible damaging effect feels like it should be possible in fantasyland without justifying it with some form of magic to me.

again, ancient dragons manage to exist without using magic to prevent themselves crumpling under their own weight, i don't see why martials don't get that same fantasy world suspension of disbelief for their strength and abilities.

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I think you're kind of just arguing over the defiinitions of words here.

Magical is a specific word in D&D, with effects that can be affected by things like Anti-Magic shells, Dispel Magic, and can be read with Detect Magic.

Supernatural is a word used around here to refer to effects impossible by real world physics, but are technically not magic as per D&D's definition. A monk punching so hard it creates a wind blast, a dragon's flying and breath, these are all supernatural abilities, but not what the books would call Magic. You're calling this "extraordinary" instead of "supernatural" but its the same thing.

CreamCloud0 said:

i'd rather martials were designed to be 'extraordinary' rather than 'supernatural', an exaggeration of what's possible with real world physics, you can produce wind pressure by swinging a sword IRL if only a little, enhancing that to produce a tangible damaging effect feels like it should be possible in fantasyland without justifying it with some form of magic to me.

again, ancient dragons manage to exist without using magic to prevent themselves crumpling under their own weight, i don't see why martials don't get that same fantasy world suspension of disbelief for their strength and abilities.

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This goes back to the 5e designers not being clear or making hard lines in order to be accommodating.

Martials cannot be

1. restricted to the bounds of the nonmagical reality of the setting
2. independent of magic items
3. have class design at the medium complex or less

One things gotta give. But there are sections of the community who want each. So 5e stays wishy washy about it.

Same with Sorcerer. 5e allows dang near anything cause sorcererism

Remathilis said:

From a narrative perspective, I hate this ability. But as a rogue player who remembers how squishy TSR thieves were, I find it a necessary ability. It's kinda that perfect example of the "cinematic martial" problem; it requires a lot of narrative justification every time it's used and it's hard to not find that justification without nerfing the class. I'd rather a rogue be able to disappear into the plane if Shadow for a moment to avoid damage than have them summon a table to dive behind, but I would hate to have the ability removed.

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My problem with Evasion is simply that if the rogue makes a successful save, they should also move out of the area of effect. How do you evade by standing still? It's a bad case of the mechanics of the ability actively contradicting the narrative (and naming!) of the feature.

Micah Sweet said:

I never had a problem with 4e's setting in itself. I had a problem with it replacing the previous iterations. The retcon was always the issue.

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I had thought you weren't much of an FR guy. Or is this about Dark Sun?

Micah Sweet said:

A thing that exists in one edition of the game. Martial power has never expanded beyond 4e.

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Or we could recognize it as planting a flag and being a turning point. It's not like 3e hadn't presaged (or should I say preswordsaged) this development with the Book of Nine Swords, and PF's ample 3PP has continued that trend. Having martial people who can do things that aren't strictly natural is not alien anymore. It's represented, in a lot of things.

Chaosmancer said:

I have seen people WITH SUPERPOWERS perform feats of strength, speed and/or intellect that are less impressive than Batman (in some comics), so... I reject that Batman is "mundane" under the definition of Mundane that is "achievable by ordinary humans"

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And I don't. What he does is achievable by ordinary humans in his reality. It's just that the vast, vast majority of ordinary humans do not have the actual superpower he possesses, which is his inviolate iron will. (It doesn't hurt that he's also a genius, an Olympic-level athlete, and incredibly charismatic, of course.) Other humans COULD do what he does, and a small number (Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger, Dick Grayson/Nightwing, Jim Harper/Guardian, Charles Szasz/The Question, Ted Kord/Blue Beetle, Ted Grant/Wildcat, Helena Bertinelli/Huntress, Sandra Wu-San/Lady Shiva, Richard Drakunovski/Dragon) do more or less the same sort of thing, with variations. Some of them are wealthy (e.g. Queen, Kyle, Grayson), some are highly intelligent (Szasz, Kord), some are Eastern or Western martial arts masters (Turner, Grant, Wu-San, Drakunovski), some are acrobats or (ex-)thieves (Kyle, Grayson, Drakunovski), etc. All are presented as being otherwise-ordinary humans with high dedication, and training that any similarly dedicated, healthy human could complete.

Chaosmancer said:

Right, 4e epitomized this idea that exceeding mundanity was not an aspect of playing the correct class, but simply of gaining levels, of becoming a paragon or a reaching your Epic Destiny. The mundane is low level, not a feature of being a fighter.

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Potayto, potahto. You say it "doesn't exist." I say it's still absolutely there the whole time--it's just that being "mundane" doesn't mean "weak" or "limited" or "incapable" or "restricted."

Maxperson said:

The bolded is untrue of the vast majority of us. We are just saying that once you exceed those limits, the ability becomes supernatural.

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That's...that's what I said though. To such folks, transcending the limits means you've ceased to be mundane. You are now supernatural. Period. Whatever you were before, you're supernatural now.

That's something I reject. I think someone can still be mundane--still only be using the tools and skills and such that a healthy, dedicated person could learn naturally--but have achieved a degree of skill with those things that surpasses what limits our feeble understanding projects onto them. "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

TwoSix said:

Yea, I agree here.

I'm with @EzekielRaiden in that I'm totally good with a farmboy growing up into a demon-slaying badass who can swing a sword and destroy boulders with the shockwave. No problem with having One-Punch Man in D&D. I love the whole general idea of "martial power."

But being able to do those things is obviously supernatural. The terminology problem I have is that people often equate "supernatural" with "derived from magic, especially arcane magic". Being able to chop through boulders with your sword is not something that can be counterspelled, or removed by an antimagic field.

Within the fiction, the type of magic used by wizards, clerics, warlocks, etc., is only a small fraction of the expanse of magical and supernatural abilities that exist within the default D&D setting.

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That is in fact how the word "supernatural" is used in a D&D context, yes. Anything supernatural is necessarily magical. It may not be spellcasting, but it's definitely magical in some way. You can thank 3e for that; that's how [Su] powers are defined. If you're going to tell me that transcendental mundane powers are "supernatural," I cannot--ever--accept, unless we also re-define "supernatural" in a way that...includes everything natural, which kind of defeats the point.

I still maintain, however, that there is a difference between the transmundane and the supernatural. The latter is spooky-action-at-a-distance stuff. The former retains extremely relevant characteristics from its mundanity. It is still linked in some meaningful way to physical action. "Research" or "meditation" alone cannot advance it, only practice and skill development can do that (though it doesn't hurt to do your research, of course). It cannot be transferred to another in any way other than imparting a lesson and then having the student drill on those lessons. It cannot be limited by any of the things which would normally stop or forestall supernatural powers (e.g. it is completely immune to any form of "antimagic field" or "dead magic zone" or the like). Etc.

Minigiant said:

The idea is that you'd have

1. Boosted Firebolt
2. Boosted Ray of Frost
3. Boosted Gust
4. Boosted True Strike
5. Boosted Acid Splash
6. Boosted Dancing Lights

to choose from every turn

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Well, obviously a lot depends on the specifics, but if I'm a caster I generally have weaker armor, which means instead of six options, I'd have 3 on my turn unless you fundamentally change the nature of the spells. And those cantrips are already designed to stand in for at-will attacks, especially if you've taken a subclass that adds a modifier to the damage.

It still sounds like, to me, you are essentially just giving more powerful attacks to a class, in exchange for being able to do little else. Which does not sound like it would be an interesting class to actually play.

Minigiant said:

Then you'd choose a subclass that

1. Gives you traditional spell slots
2. Gives you a ritual book and out of combat power
3. Gives you more boosted Cantrips
4. Gives you heavier armor and adds AOE to Cantrips
5. Gives you a wand that offers more magical options

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How are options 1 and 5 different? Why do I need more cantrips if I'm barely going to use all of the ones I have? It looks like this ends up being a choice between three options. 1) Become a spellcaster with complex options (defeating the point of the design) 2) Becoming a spellcaster with ritual options and better exploration (which is something most other casters are doing already) 3) Become even stronger in combat.

I'm not saying that the vision in your head is bad, but what I'm seeing reads a lot like "I get to do more damage in exchange for being worse at the types of things casters excel at" And they would likely STILL struggle to get better at-will cantrip damage than a Warlock.

Minigiant said:

This goes back to the 5e designers not being clear or making hard lines in order to be accommodating.

Martials cannot be

1. restricted to the bounds of the nonmagical reality of the setting
2. independent of magic items
3. have class design at the medium complex or less

One things gotta give. But there are sections of the community who want each. So 5e stays wishy washy about it.

Same with Sorcerer. 5e allows dang near anything cause sorcererism

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Yep. As I've said, the ol' "1/3 of fans can hold the other 2/3 hostage" problem.

#1 is unacceptable to those who demand OP casters (particularly, though not exclusively, the Wizard.)
#2 is, ironically, unacceptable to both new-school and old-school players, albeit for totally different reasons (the former reject the idea that Fighters can only be good at Fighter-ing because a past Wizard allowed them to be; the former because they are hostile to counting magic items as part of the game's math.)
#3 is unacceptable to those of us who want at least one, just ONE option for a martial character that doesn't bore us to tears engaging with its mechanics.

If you could actually do a complete survey, of the entire playing population, I am extremely confident that the "spellcasters must be OP" crowd would actually be quite small. They're just LOUD, and profoundly motivated, and unlike other groups, hardly heterogeneous at all when it comes to their opinions on this. And, as stated, they almost always have someone on the inside--often many people!--pulling the strings toward their preferences to begin with.

Maxperson said:

They don't actually. From the 5e Sage Advice.

"You might be thinking, “Dragons seem pretty magical to me.” And yes, they are extraordinary! Their description even says they’re magical. But our game makes a distinction between two types of magic:
• the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse’s physics and the physiology of many D&D creatures.
• the concentrated magical energy that is contained in a magic item or channeled.

In D&D, the first type of magic is part of nature. It is no more dispellable than the wind. A monster like a dragon exists because of that magic-enhanced nature. The second type of magic is what the rules are concerned about. "

When the fighter gets to that point he is engaging the background magic that is part of the D&D multiverse's physics, creating a supernatural ability to swing a sword and cut things from 20 feet away. It's the non-traditional magic that 4e talks about.

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okay yes, you're right, the dragon is technically 'using magic' and i could've worded my post better if i'd thought to, but they're not Using Magic in the same way a wizard or suchlike does is my point, it may be more accurate to say the existence of magic facilitates the dragon not crumpling, in the same way i think it should be assumed that magic facilitates various martial's extraordinary feats of strength, skill and toughness, so unless you are getting into technical definitions i think it's accurate to say for the casual definition that the dragon and the fighter aren't really using magic.