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

[nevin]

And yet casters get all 3. Why?

with the trade off that they have to memorize the spells before they know what they will have to do. Or be a sorcerer and operate with limited spell pools. Why do fighters get to be combat utility all day long without playing a guessing game? Come on. You want to complain some spells are powerful sure I'll agree. But telling me that mages always have the spells they need and they are always able to use them? I call BS....

 

[Yaarel]

Even if Rogues get an ability, the same issue applies. Balance has nothing to do with strength, and running across a tight rope is an act of balance. And yet, with what you are declaring the strongman with his 18 str and 8 dex is going to be far superior at running over a tight wire than the gymnast with the 16 dex and 10 str.

I get you want to make athletics somehow more, but the only overlap between athletics and acrobatics is climbing, and climbing usually shouldn't even involve a check in the first place. So I don't see any reason to combine the two skills.

Balance has everything to do with jumping and climbing = Strength.

I don't have a problem with fighter's being good at athletics. The problem is "what mechanic" because all of the mechanics are being used by other classes.

All characters can invest in Strength thus gain agile Athletics.

The Fighter class benefits from Strength, and synergizes best with agile Athletics.

 

[Emberashh]

For example, rituals are items

Rituals. Are. Not. Items.

They. Are. Spells.

If a Fighter finds a scroll, with instructions to perform a ritual, then that is a magic item. Compare the various tomes and manuals that are likewise magic items that function by giving instructions

Scrolls =/= Rituals.

The fiction actually does matter, if you weren't aware. Thats why people care if their Artifacts are a sword or some other weapon, and why people care if a Fighter is getting all their interesting parts from spellcasting.

Mechanical shortcuts and lazy game design doesn't mean the fiction becomes irrelevant.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I believe, if one had to tackle this issue earnestly, one would need to start at the magic system.
The non-casters would become fairly easy to design if we could fix the magic within D&D cosmos.
But that is my personal opinion.

Nerfing casters in any significant way is not going to come from WotC; they've proven that through the playtest. Doing it through 3pp and homebrew is the only way, and the bigger the change you want to make to the magic system, the more likely you need to change the architecture, resulting in a compatible but different 5e, like Level Up or Tales of the Valiant.

How you nerf magic is also very important. A lot of people are satisfied with what casters are capable of, or it would have been changed a while ago (just not a lot of people here). When 4e leveled the playing field for everyone, for example, it quickly showed those who liked the general shape of what we had before and those who didn't. This may not be a large concern for this discussion, since I've perceived a strong overlap between those who want a mythic martial and those who preferred 4e to other forms of D&D, but you never know.

 

[Micah Sweet]

WOTC's data says no one plays high level 5e and people are not excited about it.

So it isn't a me thing or a minority thing.

Very few people play high level 5e and the few who do don't play it for long.

Another reason (perhaps the most important) why big changes in this area will not come from WotC.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The thing people seem upset about is hitting, then causing a saving throw, and frankly, there are only two other options to change that.

1) The attack no longer has an attack roll, but is a saving throw entirely (which messes up a large number of abilities)

2) The knock prone is automatic on a hit.

Those are your only two options beyond hit and save.

D&D could actually have degrees of success. Hit by 5+ trigger X, hit by 10+ trigger X or Y, etc. The number would need to go up to account for a bigger range of outcomes, but frankly I'm tired of bounded accuracy's Harrison Bergeron effect, where no one is allowed to be exceptional because we have to let some first level spud rolling their dump stat have a decent chance of success and DM's want to have their players fight large rats post level 10.

 

[Yaarel]

the gymnast with the 16 dex and 10 str.

There is no such thing as a gymnast with Dex 16 and Str 10.

Look at reallife gymnasts. They are extremely muscular.

Strength is agile.

 

[Chaosmancer]

We arent talking about level 5.
We are talking about level 11 or 15.

If a level 8 or 9 game gets wonky, imagine the level 15 fights.

Sure, let's imagine for a moment what would have changed in Treantmonk's party at level 15.

The Paladin would have had 0 more attacks than he did, just doing more damage. The barbarian would have had 0 more attacks than he did, and really not done much more damage either. The Bladelock would have had 0 more attacks than he did and had more powerful spells that could have caused more saves. The Sorcerer would have had more powerful spells. The Fiend Warlock would have had more Eldritch blasts and more powerful spells. The champion fighter could have made 1 additional attack.

So, let me ask you. Does 1 additional attack suddenly make that entirely beyond gonzo? An extreme carnival of attacks and saves beyond anything they could have handled?

The reason I brought up the level 5 fighter, is because level 5 is when every class except the fighter stops getting new attacks. Two attacks, two saves, that is the limit of what you might expect. That is 4d20. Is rolling 4d20 a round truly such a burden upon play?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I did just have a thought.

What if Fighters could add their dexterity and their strength together when making dex or str checks? That could not only give them a small buff, but also address this constant narrative that people actually trained in these things would need to be both dexterous and strong.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D could actually have degrees of success. Hit by 5+ trigger X, hit by 10+ trigger X or Y, etc. The number would need to go up to account for a bigger range of outcomes, but frankly I'm tired of bounded accuracy's Harrison Bergeron effect, where no one is allowed to be exceptional because we have to let some first level spud rolling their dump stat have a decent chance of success and DM's want to have their players fight large rats post level 10.

Bounded accuracy does have its pitfalls.