D&D 5E Martial, Magic or Mundane? What can X do in 5e

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Magic or Mundane?
Well in the fighter and the warlord threads I have been accused of being ‘against’ the martial classes. If I did not know any better I would say it is a kin to a down trodden minority in a racist society. I don’t want to sound pushy or come off like I am championing the destruction of the power source, but isn’t by definition it the power source of the basic everyday?

I don’t want to see any martial characters using what I would think of as magic effects. Barbarian and Paladin got past thi by being weapon classes of different sources. SO I was thinking what counts as magic in my eyes.
Here is my list, maybe we can share some ideas and give WotC a fighting chance at this unity thing if we can se ewhere we all agree and disagree:

Flight/really long jumps- Superman is magic hands down, but so is hulk or doomsday jumping miles at a time. So I started think about what I would want as a max jump. I can jump a couple of feet, I know athletes could do yards, so I guess under 20 feet is within my mind possible.
Super speed- at basic marines are made to do a 4-5 minute mile. I believe there are records around half that. However these are short 1-5 mile runs, not all day.
Non weapon damage- never should a non magic attack deal anything but weapon damage. There may be few exceptions (wielding a torch) but they are rare.
Healing- Martial healing should take time. I am fine with a 1 minute first aid, and hours of care bringing back hp, but standard action heals should be magical.
Strength and endurance- I think attributes should have non magic caps. If I was going to put this into 4e I would make it 22. If you start with a 20, and up it twice, you are maxed. If you start with a 16 and up it 6 times you are maxed. (I would then bring back magic ways to up them) That would even help with balance.
Enhancing others- No bonus you give should last longer then a turn or two. Warlord powers that last the entire encounter kinda bug me, but fighter and ranger onse really bug me.

IN general I will go with the Burn Notice idea. Michael Westen does things that a normal person can dom he has skills anyone can learn. He get lucky (man the DM is on his side) a lot, and the amount of skills he has would never be mastered to that level in one person, but that is where the fantasy angle comes in.


What does everyone else think? Is martial Magical or Mundane?

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I want my martial characters to be completely mundane. I'll just cap their level at 5 and be done with it. After all... anyone who thinks a character who reaches Epic Tier is still just a "normal guy" is fooling themselves. You don't start on the path of becoming a demigod and still remain "mundane".

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

If I want my martial characters to be completely mundane. I'll just cap their level at 5 and be done with it. After all... anyone who thinks a character who reaches Epic Tier is still just a "normal guy" is fooling themselves. You don't start on the path of becoming a demigod and still remain "mundane".

Now that is a good point. I know in the warlord thread one of the people brought up an eladrin warlord who took the spiral tower Paragon path. Even at that point I would say that the PP in question is steeped in a magical school that you trained at, and as such is you beginning to become magical.

See a warlord is martial, I see no reason why a Warlord/X paragon path needs to still be martial. So you know what make the more mystic stuff in the paragon tier then. I also think a fighter/Demi god who does stuff like Hercules can owe it to the demi god nature more than the fighter training.

Infact i will take it a step farther, if level 1-5 martial heroes could only do 'real' things, and level 6-10 got a little out there, but most of the big stuff didn't come intill paragon or epic. I guess a epic warlord/battle captain/demi god healing with a word isn't that bad, I could live with it.

However a level 1 human warlord should not be healing

 

[Minigiant]

Either "High Magic & Demigod Mundane" or "Expensive Magic and Mortal Mundanes"

I could live with either. If magic can easily warp reality with little cost to the caster, then mortal characters should be able to break into the supernatural. If mundane characters are bounded to humanoid reality, then it takes 5 spells to transform into a fire breathing dragon that can stand in front of a trained warrior for more than 2 rounds.

 

[Wormwood]

Wow, am I the only one who enjoys characters who feel like they stepped out of legend?

Turnabout being fair play, this is where I tell myself that nobody is coming to take my 4e books away.

 

[Dausuul]

I agree that martial characters should have limits; they should stretch the boundaries of what's possible in the real world, but not go careening past them. Conan good, Hercules bad.

That said, if martial characters have limits and magical characters do not, it's pretty tough on the martial characters. So I think the real question should be, "What limits do magical characters have that martial characters don't?"

 

[avin]

It depends on the setting and the mood of the game I'm GMing.

In general I like Fighters doing what I'd call mundane things... until they reach epic levels.

D&D was never really good at keeping warriors "mundane" withou crippling their power curve, compared to casters. It works a lot better on Gurps, where a dagger in the eye use to be deadlier than a fireball.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Healing- Martial healing should take time. I am fine with a 1 minute first aid, and hours of care bringing back hp, but standard action heals should be magical.
IN general I will go with the Burn Notice idea. Michael Westen does things that a normal person can dom he has skills anyone can learn. He get lucky (man the DM is on his side) a lot, and the amount of skills he has would never be mastered to that level in one person, but that is where the fantasy angle comes in.


What does everyone else think? Is martial Magical or Mundane?

While I'll agree that there were a handful of powers in various editions for martial characters that may have stepped over the line of being mundane, I think the vast majority don't and are perfectly fine. I certainly can't think of a low level power that allows a PC to leap more than 20 feet, for example.

As for the Michael Weston argument, while I've got a bit of catching up to do on Burn Notice I'm pretty sure we've seen Michael yell and cajole people into soldiering on. In 4e, where catching your breath restores hp (see Second Wind and Short Rest), restoring hp via the "drill sergeant method" can hardly be constituted as magical. You might not like that interpretation on hp, but it is internally consistent.

I do agree that low level martial abilities should be limited to extreme competence. By epic levels though, I'm perfectly fine with abilities that would normally be considered magical, or at least mystical. At that point the fighter's peers are Hercules and Gilgamesh, so he should be able to act as their equal.

 

[Hassassin]

I certainly can't think of a low level power that allows a PC to leap more than 20 feet, for example.

3.5e jump skill. Not 3e though.

 

[Fanaelialae]

3.5e jump skill. Not 3e though.

Fair enough. While considering class features / powers, I completely forget about skills, probably because I think of them as more mundane than martial.