D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[RainOnTheSun]

You either end up with non-supernatural warriors in only name, or supernatural warriors whose supernatural powers cannot even surpass the non-supernaturals. Makes for absolutely terrible thematics.

At the risk of sounding single-minded, this reminds me of the way the presence of wizards makes clerics and warlocks feel weird to me.

You can either learn to do a thing on your own, or you can learn to do a thing with extra help - but the extra help doesn't actually make you any better at doing the thing than you would have been if you had learned to do the thing on your own.

The easiest fix is probably to separate the "supernatural" from the "warrior," so that a character decides how much they want to prioritize pure combat ability, but that's not how these things work in the fiction. Jedi don't run into non-Force users who are better lightsaber duelists, martial arts masters who can balance on a single blade of grass and jump thirty feet through the air don't lose fights to people who can't. The supernatural fighter is just better than the mundane fighter, and being a better fighter is often what makes them supernatural.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Ideally I like the base class martials being mundane in tiers 1-2, while being supernatural in tiers 3 and 4.

personally i think it'd be a shame if that's the only option, it's basically saying 'hey you can't play your character concept of mundane hero who's just as capable as the other guys unless you stick to the small leagues' being mundane never stopped the characters in the stories from being a big damn hero so why can't my character do that too?

 

[Mephista]

At the risk of sounding single-minded, this reminds me of the way the presence of wizards makes clerics and warlocks feel weird to me.

You can either learn to do a thing on your own, or you can learn to do a thing with extra help - but the extra help doesn't actually make you any better at doing the thing than you would have been if you had learned to do the thing on your own.

As an aside.... I find it interesting how many people default to "warlocks are edgewood divine casters" instead of just having a supernatural being for a teacher instead of a humanoid-ran academy.

Blue mages vs black mages, if you pardon the FF reference.

The easiest fix is probably to separate the "supernatural" from the "warrior," so that a character decides how much they want to prioritize pure combat ability, but that's not how these things work in the fiction. Jedi don't run into non-Force users who are better lightsaber duelists, martial arts masters who can balance on a single blade of grass and jump thirty feet through the air don't lose fights to people who can't. The supernatural fighter is just better than the mundane fighter, and being a better fighter is often what makes them supernatural.

EDIT lost text, come back!!!!

Unless the author is trying to invoke a Badass Normal trope. Tat does change things

 

[EzekielRaiden]

personally i think it'd be a shame if that's the only option, it's basically saying 'hey you can't play your character concept of mundane hero who's just as capable as the other guys unless you stick to the small leagues' being mundane never stopped the characters in the stories from being a big damn hero so why can't my character do that too?

Unfortunately, this is where we run into an almost-surely irreconcilable conflict.

To you (and to me, and various others), there's nothing wrong with this. Someone can be "mundane" and still do things that are the stuff of myth and legend, because they're Just That Good. Such characters truly are still mundane. They've just refined mundane skill until it becomes something legendary, something that can spit in the eye of IRL physics.

To others--including several people in this thread--such an idea is not merely implausible, it is inherently self-contradictory. To be "mundane" IS to be absolutely, inherently incapable of feats of myth and legend. To be "mundane" is simply...to have really hard limits* and never, under any circumstances, any ability to exceed those limits. Exceeding those limits is what defines being supernatural, and exceeding them by simply accumulating enough mundane skill is a contradiction in terms, like saying one could assemble enough dryness to produce water or enough darkness to produce light.

As stated, I think this conflict is irreconcilable. Some folks just cannot, under any circumstances, accept "mundane skill that transcends the limits we normally ascribe to mundanity," even in a world where non-magical beings are doing things that aren't possible by Earth physics. In their eyes, there is a bright, hard, absolutely uncrossable line between "mundane" and "supernatural," and nothing, genuinely nothing whatsoever, can cross over that line without having an explicitly and inherently supernatural explanation for doing so.

Unfortunately, that group has almost always been both very vocal and very motivated, and often has had folks on their side actually doing the leadership of D&D design. As a result, their opinion usually wins out, and we're left with the unhealing wound of martial/caster disparity.

*Often, these limits are even harsher than the actual limits of IRL physics, as in, they're limits real live humans could break or have already broken. But that's a can of worms for another thread.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Unfortunately, this is where we run into an almost-surely irreconcilable conflict.

To you (and to me, and various others), there's nothing wrong with this. Someone can be "mundane" and still do things that are the stuff of myth and legend, because they're Just That Good. Such characters truly are still mundane. They've just refined mundane skill until it becomes something legendary, something that can spit in the eye of IRL physics.

To others--including several people in this thread--such an idea is not merely implausible, it is inherently self-contradictory. To be "mundane" IS to be absolutely, inherently incapable of feats of myth and legend. To be "mundane" is simply...to have really hard limits* and never, under any circumstances, any ability to exceed those limits. Exceeding those limits is what defines being supernatural, and exceeding them by simply accumulating enough mundane skill is a contradiction in terms, like saying one could assemble enough dryness to produce water or enough darkness to produce light.

As stated, I think this conflict is irreconcilable. Some folks just cannot, under any circumstances, accept "mundane skill that transcends the limits we normally ascribe to mundanity," even in a world where non-magical beings are doing things that aren't possible by Earth physics. In their eyes, there is a bright, hard, absolutely uncrossable line between "mundane" and "supernatural," and nothing, genuinely nothing whatsoever, can cross over that line without having an explicitly and inherently supernatural explanation for doing so.

Unfortunately, that group has almost always been both very vocal and very motivated, and often has had folks on their side actually doing the leadership of D&D design. As a result, their opinion usually wins out, and we're left with the unhealing wound of martial/caster disparity.

*Often, these limits are even harsher than the actual limits of IRL physics, as in, they're limits real live humans could break or have already broken. But that's a can of worms for another thread.

I totally accept that a mundane hero can over time and daring adventures cultivate skills and abilities that transcends the mundane, but I wouldn't call the resulting character mundane any longer. But I guess that is more of a semantic quibble.

 

[RainOnTheSun]

Unless the author is trying to invoke a Badass Normal trope. Tat does change things

To me, that usually feels like a lower level character handling high level challenges by what would be considered Skilled Play(tm) of the OSR variety, GM favoritism, or both. Batman doesn't fight Superman by being so good at martial arts that he can punch out kryptonians (being the same level as Superman), he fights Superman by planning ahead, exploiting specific weaknesses, and getting the writer to make Superman forget half of his powers.

 

[Remathilis]

Ideally I like the base class martials being mundane in tiers 1-2, while being supernatural in tiers 3 and 4.

Casters get to be supernatural from level 1. Why should martials wait 10+ levels to get the fun toys casters got 6 levels ago?

Personal preference is that martials should be supernatural at level 1. Let everyone have fun toys. There are plenty of ways to do that without being a caster.

 

[Remathilis]

personally i think it'd be a shame if that's the only option, it's basically saying 'hey you can't play your character concept of mundane hero who's just as capable as the other guys unless you stick to the small leagues' being mundane never stopped the characters in the stories from being a big damn hero so why can't my character do that too?

It kinda makes sense though. In Marvel comics, you get different power levels from street (Daredevil) to cosmic (Captain Marvel). A character like Punisher (the closest to a badass normal you're likely to find) won't do squat against Thanos. Likewise, a fighter, without magical support in terms of casters or items, isn't going to win against fiends or dragons.

To fight supernatural enemies, you need supernatural powers.

 

[Mephista]

To me, that usually feels like a lower level character handling high level challenges by what would be considered Skilled Play(tm) of the OSR variety, GM favoritism, or both. Batman doesn't fight Superman by being so good at martial arts that he can punch out kryptonians (being the same level as Superman), he fights Superman by planning ahead, exploiting specific weaknesses, and getting the writer to make Superman forget half of his powers.

And it's extremely common for monsters in DnD to have resistances you need specific weapons for (especially in 3.x) - that's no different than batman showing up with kryptonite nuckles.
Planning ahead is kind of an everyone thing in dnd. You don't fight ancient dragons where they can kite you with flyby straffing tactics and bombardment magics.
And dms fudge things all the time.

So... perfect fit!

I mean, what's wrong with a guy loaded with the appropriate magical gear taking on powerful threats?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To fight supernatural enemies, you need supernatural powers.

D&D has consistently rejected this though. Which is...sort of the issue. It rejects that this is a thing, but fails to actually make it happen.

A lot of folks are really keen on the idea that someone can be Just That Good, such that they CAN fight supernatural enemies without having supernatural powers. And a lot of other folks are so anti-keen on that idea, it actively upsets them to have anything that even remotely hints of it.

And somehow we're expected to have a game that pleases both--which usually ends up throwing the first group under the bus without a second thought.