D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[Chaosmancer]

Please note I said cinema.

Ah, so weak enough to be a level 3 fighter and therefore not a high level martial. Just like most of your other examples

 

[Gammadoodler]

Huge doesn’t have a defined size range?

Because I didn’t need official size entries to go “wait, how!?” at the thought of ships only being huge.

Yeah this is why, even though I don’t really totally agree with the premise, I’m all for addressing the issue for those who do.

If you're not on a grid, you think how many huge creatures in the bestiary could be about boat sized.

For my money, kind of a lot.

That said, Chaosmancer has posted the full details of the encounter so I don't really see a need to litigate further.

 

[Emberashh]

However, other classes including Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard can also use these same tools.

Sure, but in that particular context, its a unique tool only the Warrior can build. Who uses it is rather immaterial; after all, spells are often beneficial to someone other than the caster.

Im pretty sure someone in this topic suggested the integration of equipment and tools for martial classes. Heck, in some ways the Rogue is already pointed in that direction.

Doesn't take that much to push the other Martials on the same lines; hell when I played martials a simple crowbar was my first purchase. Its fun letting the DM forget how explicitly I hid the crowbar on my person just to pull it out when he thinks hes got me playing prisoner.

Taking something like that and building it up as a substantial part of a martial is a good way to start bridging the gap without having to just do spells.

But they dont achieve balance, per se.

I wouldn't say that. Especially when given the below that I got too excited to write about. But its also that it really depends on how far you go. Equipment is a place where explicit hard coding, like with spells, would be very worthwhile. If I sat and tried, I think I could come up several dozen ways to use a crowbar that don't involve bonkinf or prying; those ways should be in the books, and Martials should take what mechanics are there and build on them. Heck, how many times has someone come looking for a well done Tavern Brawler class thats all just using random objects? Its free real estate, as the memes say.

Using LNO and the siege engine bit as an example, if one were to choose Siege Master as their subclass, theyd gain the ability to take their siege weapons and use them with their Battle Combos (like maneuvers but better), and by the end game, a Siege Master can not only run a trebuchet like its basically a modern cannon, but can deliver devastation on par with any of your typical big damage spells you might imagine.

Before you even get into what the Warrior can do, you've got just the construction of the siege engines themselves, which as just indepth as any other weapon is. You can pack in special fantastical woods, ammunition, ropes even! All kinds of different materials that contribute different effects to really nail down just how awesome you want your own catapult (whether its the mini one or its regular sized brother) to be, and then by level 30 you get to convert them to Trebuchets increasing their baseline capabilities considerably.
But with the Warriors abillities? Increased AOE, massive environmental damage (4x against all objects and terrains), dominating morale effects, and each shot gets special riders based on the Battle Combo the Warrior chooses, giving a Siege Master the capability to reign down destruction ranging from a proverbial cluster bomb to a proverbial MOAB, and more inbetween.

And that is all before we embrace the Warriors mage friends and start enchanting these Siege Engines for even crazier devastation.

Im not kidding or overhyping when I say that high-level LNO is bonkers. A naked Barbarian at level 30 and maxed Martial Arts can throw out 6d6+4d12 punches. Naked. Now add in custom built weapons that, through full use of the Crafting systems between Smithing and Enchanting, can have upwards of 12 different properties driving damage, special effects, and all sorts of other things.

Bonkers, is what it is. But, thats possible because its being built to be balls to the wall from the ground up, and despite how complex all of that sounds Im pushing really hard to keep it super easy to run, and thus far I've been pretty successful with it, though today I had to scrap some of my Sorcerer for violating that tenet.

Because few play to high levels, few know to DM it.

High level plays first problem from a design perspective is that it takes way too much time to get there just for the entire game to start over nearly as soon as youre there.

That has a lot to do with WOTC apparently refusing to support it outside of may be 1 or 2 adventures; system wise if you can find your own flow for running at that level (as my group did) it can work fine, even without homebrew help to push it along.

Thats where all my arguments about adventure design and embracing even the weaker parts of the system (like Improvise Action) really come from.

And sure, we can say that all the effort it takes to get to that point shouldn't be required, but thats also why I've said that this is more of a support issue than it is a system issue.

If the core books taught you better to DM, I still say a lot of these issues just wouldn't be on anyones radar at all. The system in that instance doesn't have to change at all, the literature surrounding it does, and even WOTC has agreed thats something they need to do.

Finding an elegant way to thread the needles between all these issues so one doesn't go overboard is a worthwhile endeavor.

We've got more than a few examples of people in this topic lamenting how much resistance they expect from people who like the current balance between the classes (ie caster stans), and at the end of the day thats just people not wanting their toys nerfed.

But imagine if we jack up all the other classes and still abide by the no nerf rule, even when doing so makes balancing the game all that much harder, if not even impossible?

Youd pretty much have to do a hard reset via a new edition to pull back from that, as thats the only way you're going to avoid pushback from those types.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Psionics is magic. Ki is magic. Martial magic is magic. Superheroes are magic.

"Please don't."

"I AM DOUBLEDOWNULOUS THE MIGHTY"

Yeah, I'm done with this.

 

[Nadan]

Well, the "Tool guy" or "Gadget guy" role in 5e is belong to Artificer already, you martial lovers need to find another niche.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Well, the "Tool guy" or "Gadget guy" role in 5e is belong to Artificer already, you martial lovers need to find another niche.

artificers should be martials anyway, honestly

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you're not on a grid, you think how many huge creatures in the bestiary could be about boat sized.

For my money, kind of a lot.

That said, Chaosmancer has posted the full details of the encounter so I don't really see a need to litigate further.

Huh. Fair enough I suppose. For me…I’d expect a huge creature to be able to fit in the hold of a sailing ship, even a smaller ship.

Well, the "Tool guy" or "Gadget guy" role in 5e is belong to Artificer already, you martial lovers need to find another niche.

It would require a much more complex class, but you definitely could have a very cool mostly martial artificer.

I’d still want infusions and alchemical explodies, so like there would still be magical stuff in there because like nature, D&D science involves magic, but the artificer wouldn’t be casting spells or directly doing magic.

artificers should be martials anyway, honestly

Idk about “should”, but it certainly could be.

 

[Yaarel]

artificers should be martials anyway, honestly

The notion, "alchemy" ≈ science-technology, allows an Artificer to be Martial.

Regarding skills, I use Survival for any thing relating to wilderness, whether hunting, tracking, navigating, weather, etcetera. In other words, the wilds of nature.

But, I use Nature for anything relating to the properties of nature including, structural engineering, math, architecture, masonry, metalsmithing, etcetera. In other words, elementalism.

Earthy solids, watery liquids, airy gases, and fiery plasmas, plus ethereal forces like gravity − is the stuff of alchemy, aka science. It is protoscience but it is often scientifically useful. All of this is the Nature skill.

Reallife alchemy also investigates medical applications, relating to immortality, soul, lifeforce, and health generally. The Medicine skill.

An Artificer with elemental themes relating Nature and Medicine can easily be a Martial character concept.

 

[Hussar]

artificers should be martials anyway, honestly

Artificers are what martials wish they could be. Artificers make fighters look like rank amateurs.

 

[TheSword]

Oh yay. I always love these conversations, they are always so fruitful. Please, bless us with your wisdom.



Ah, of course! The servant is mindless so it can't do something like find a key. That would be silly. Why it is limited to tasks like "The servant can perform simple tasks that a human servant could do, such as fetching things, cleaning, mending, folding clothes, lighting fires, serving food, and pouring wine."

Huh, that's weird. You know, the very first thing on the list is fetching something. Now, I don't know about you, but since the Unseen Servant can perform simple tasks that a human can... well, if I asked a human to fetch the bottle of 950's Argonian Wine... I'd expect them to be able to do it. Even if the wine bottle was not in perfectly clear line of sight. In fact, the servant might... have to search for the wine. It may have to open a cabinet. And yet the spell tells us it is perfectly capable of the task. Ah, but that is but a single example right. It isn't like there is a far more complex task on this list, right? Such as... mending?

Now, I don't know if you have ever mended clothes, but it is actually an incredibly complex task. First you have to grab the correct article of clothing, it may even be multiples, but we'll start one at a time. Then you need to get the proper needle, the proper color thread, matching buttons... if the servant lacked the intelligence to look for something... how is it finding all of these things and THEN properly utilizing them to actually effectively mend the clothes?

See, you mistake is you are misinterpreting what "mindless" means. See, mindless is usually utilized to describe someone who is not thinking about something or concerned with something. A mindless task is a task so easy you can do it without considering the task. It is something that... could be done by a machine. And thus we get into what is meant by the spell. Unlike a familiar, or a conjured creauture, the force created by unseen servant lacks a mind, it lacks a will. It is an automaton. That doesn't mean that it cannot successful complete a complex task, that means it has no opinions, no thoughts, it simply does what you say. It cannot observe and report.

Now, maybe the DM did have the key on a hook. I don't know. We didn't have to roll anything, and we didn't have to see the key ourselves. The servant was given a task, and it completed it. That's what it does.



Why would two boats being forced to move 100 ft in six seconds, crashing into each other damage them? That isn't a bump. And it didn't need to immediately destroy the ship, just cause it to start sinking. Which hull damage can absolutely do.

But since you are so obsessed with the size, I dug through our old files. The game was only two years ago, so I still have the map. And it turns out, I was wrong about a few things.

View attachment 288258

It was only the whirpool, I didn't use the flood. And they were 20 ft long long boats. So, they were small enough. Also, the whirlpool does 2d8 damage. Kind of weird you want to rant about my DM getting the rules wrong when you are also getting them wrong.

But let's take a moment here, before I get to you cracking up. How do the boat's escape the vortex? They need to make a strength athletics check, and since they are caught, that would be with disadvantage. So that would be a check based on.. the rowers, right? So, once the boats were caught, they were stuck and taking damage. Even if it didn't happen in a single round... who cares?



View attachment 288259

Yep, I totally see that docked ship moving and there is clearly spaces at the ends where they could safely stand.

By the way, did you know that planet's spin? They actually aren't stationary. Guess that means wall of fire can't be cast on the planet. Or, it turns out, that a ship's deck is a solid surface by literally any definition of the terms, and the point is you can't have a wall of fire bridge a gap.

And you know, a massive wall of fire catching flammable things on fire... isn't exactly a stretch. Especially since the majority of fire spells make mention of it. And things like Flame Storm specifically allow for things to not be caught on fire. Unclear rules or a DM bending over backwards to lavish their player with undue power? Frankly, you will say the second even if I could find the transcripts of the exact interaction.



Different DM.



I never claimed any of this was the systems fault. I claimed that having these options is more powerful than not having them. But I'm sure you'll continue to berate me because my DM didn't specifically cater to your exact interpretation of the rules and therefore everything I did was invalid and therefore the fact that the barbarian in the group was just standing around waiting for an enemy to get closer and had no access to AOE's at all is totally my DM's fault for being too nice and not the fact that the system gives spellcasters far more options than it gives martials.

Cheers for the clarification. That makes more sense about you capsizing four large rowboats rather four ships as you said first. The first is kinda proportional and expected, the second pretty crazy. I’m not sure what you think is crazily out of power whack being able to stop a few rowboats with a 6th level spell.

Funnily enough your 2nd map kinda suggests that isn’t the case, because it looks like the ‘boats’ had 10 people on the boat and looks to be about 40ft long, so much much bigger than the size guide for gargantuan things. I would expect a large rowboat to have about 50-100 hp if it was 20ft long. I reckon it would taken a pretty long time to destroy with 2d8 damage. A gargantuan 40 ft long ship isn’t going to be destroyed by a whirlpool, they have damage soak, but your DM may not have seen the rules on that or massively underestimated the ships hp or size. I think your recollections are pretty fishy though.

Incidentally you’ve also drawn your wall of fire 10 feet wide by the looks of it rather than the 1 foot wide it actually is.

As for the rest, as you say you're stretching the implications of spells. The earth turns therefore you can cast wall of fire on moving objects? Come on dude, that’s not cool. Mending clothes is difficult so I can get Unseen servant to do other difficult things too that aren’t specified in the spell like search for stuff that you don’t even know is there? Pull the other ones. It says fire in the description so it must set things on fire? Give me a break. Does that mean fire shield also sets things ablaze? Does that mean you don’t need the party to search for treasure any more, or traps you can just tell the unseen servant to find them?

When you’re looking at a spell and what you’re trying to do isn’t specifically covered by the description. Then maybe stop and consider whether you’re overreaching. Particularly when you’re arguing Magic is too powerful and spoils things for other players. If you’re using the phrase ‘doesn’t seem a stretch to…’ then you’re probably overreaching the spell. Do you let Magic missile break through doors too?

Now I actually think that fine. It’s good for whatever fits your table. Maybe your group is fine with fire spells automatically setting stuff on fire that don’t specify that they do… you can modify spells any way you want. Don’t tell me that spells are OP though just because you house rule extra benefits to spells they don’t normally have, or relax the limitations on them.

You can cast wall of fire on moving objects because the earth turns? That deserves its own paragraph in the DMs guide.

For all those wondering why there is a number of players and DMs that still dispute that magic is as disruptive/essential for the game, then this is why. Let’s have some advice columns for DMs adjudicating spells rather than claiming the system is broken and needs a radical overhaul. Because I guarantee the solutions you’re proposing aren’t solving the problems being described here.