D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[ECMO3]

RAW when.

All the time. There are specific guidelines for DCs and they did not change with Tasha's and they don't change with level.

So as the party leveled if the DM would offer them harder challenges

A DM who makes opening locks or finding tracks, finding food or persuading NPCs more difficult for high level characters, thart DM is not playing RAW.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why should they be on equal footing?

Because this is a game we play with friends, not lackeys.

 

[Minigiant]

All the time. There are specific guidelines for DCs and they did not change with Tasha's and they don't change with level.



A DM who makes opening locks or finding tracks, finding food or persuading NPCs more difficult for high level characters, thart DM is not playing RAW.

I meant the feats and fighting styles for out of combat customization didn't exist at the start.

 

[Clint_L]

All the time. There are specific guidelines for DCs and they did not change with Tasha's and they don't change with level.

Key word: guidelines.

A DM who makes opening locks or finding tracks, finding food or persuading NPCs more difficult for high level characters, thart DM is not playing RAW.

Show me that rule.

It is up to the DM to set DCs. I always make challenges level appropriate. I'm not even going to bother having a trap for level 10s with a DC of 10 to spot or disarm. It'd be a waste of time and add nothing to the story.

In fact, here's what the DMG states:

The downside of this whole approach is its predictability. For example, once a character’s ability score reaches 20, checks of DC 15 and lower using that ability become automatic successes. Smart players will then always match the character with the highest ability score against any given check. If you want some risk of failure, you need to set higher DCs. Doing this, though, can aggravate the problem you’re trying to solve: higher DCs require higher die rolls, and thus rely even more on luck.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What other classes can and can't do is irrelevant to the discussion! The false claim is that a fighter can't be good at anoything except attacking one enemy.

That statement is simply untrue in RAW 5E. It is 100% catagorically false in RAW 5E.

A fighter can be good at other things and if you want to play a fighter that is good at other things you should build it to be good at other things instead of building it to be good at combat.

I play a lot of fighters and none of them have only been good at combat.



Who cares if they are on equal footing? The point is they can do other things well unless you purposely build them not to be.

And fighters are already ahead of barbarians and Monks at most levels.

I think other people are seeing a difference in "being good at" as in "is the lead for the party in X situation" and "being good at" as in "is not actively a burden on the party"

Sure, you can built a fighter to not utterly suck at the social pillar of play by giving them a high charisma and proficiency in Persuasion. But that isn't enough to be GOOD at the social pillar of play, because EVERYONE can do that. The classes that are actually GOOD in the social pillar of play first off don't need to make sacrifices to get that high charisma, and secondly have OTHER things to support their skill use.

And, from the perspective of a team game, it actually DOES matter what other classes can do. Because that shows the gradient of curve. If all it took to be a good melee damage dealer was having a high strength and proficiency with a melee weapon, then wizards would be premier melee damage dealers. But the scale goes a lot higher than that.

 

[ECMO3]

Because this is a game we play with friends, not lackeys.

So what? I play with friends too.

 

[ECMO3]

I meant the feats and fighting styles for out of combat customization didn't exist at the start.

Ok. But they do exist now.

 

[ECMO3]

Sure, you can built a fighter to not utterly suck at the social pillar of play by giving them a high charisma and proficiency in Persuasion. But that isn't enough to be GOOD at the social pillar of play, because EVERYONE can do that.

But unless everyone at the table does do that the fighter will be the best. Also you are assuming the fighter is not using subclass abilities, feats or fighting styles to further his abilities in this regard.

And, from the perspective of a team game, it actually DOES matter what other classes can do. Because that shows the gradient of curve. If all it took to be a good melee damage dealer was having a high strength and proficiency with a melee weapon, then wizards would be premier melee damage dealers. But the scale goes a lot higher than that.

Wizards are the premier melee characters if (and only if) they design to that specifically.

A Wizard optimized for melee to include melee specific spells, contingency, upcast false life, etc will mop the floor in melee at most levels with an equivalent fighter optimized for melee.

However that Wizard will be worse at the other two pillars than a fighter who chose to invest in those and no better than the melee optimized fighter.

It is a team game and the fighter class can be good at the social and exploration pillars while still being good at combat, because the fighter has built in mechanics that make it good at combat regardless of choices. Most casters don't. Outside of a Bard or Ranger a caster class who makes choices (specifically spell selection) to be good at both the social and exploration pillars will be pretty weak at the combat pillar. They can manage. Bard and Ranger are the only two that can pull it off.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So what? I play with friends too.

Friends don't try to outshine and overbear friends in cooperative games.

 

[ECMO3]

So, because you played a fighter with 10 Con to level 20, everyone who is worried about dying on the front line is a fool? Come on, you are positioning yourself as though if a fighter wants to be equally useful all they need is a decent score and a skill proficiency, but that is so bare bones, that most Full Casters ALSO have those things.

I don't think I called anyone any names and if you want to put your points in copnstitution do that, but in a pB or SA game you are making a purposeful decision to be bad at the non-combat pillars when you do that. The only classes that can be good at all 3 pillars while investing heavily in Constitution are Bard, Rogue and Ranger (and only Ranger because of the Fey Wanderer), other casters can manage two at a time while having a high (16) con at start.

As a point of fact it is not necessary to invest in Constitution to survive in a game designed according to the counter balance guideling. That is fact. That doesn't mean you will always survive as a luck has something to do with it, but RAW 5E combat is EASY and statistically you are not likely to die because you chose a 10 constitution instead of a 14.

If you make a point buy Wizard with a 16 Constitution, and she is not going to be good at all 3 pillars at all 20 levels.

So... spells, spells, spells, magical race, spells, spells, spells.... Huh... so the only way to accomplish these things are through... spells. Or playing a race that allows you to shapeshift.

You claimed fighters can't do specific things and they can do all of them (although not necessarily at the same time)

Hmmm.... I wonder if that is the problem we keep talking about...

It is not the one I am talking about. I am talkinbg about the common and often repeated fallacy that a fighter cna only be good at hitting one target.

As I have said over and over again, that is just a patently false statement.

Suggestion spell.

Eldritch Knight. If you want to play another subclass the only way I know of is to take Arcana proficiency or smiths tools proficiency and make a helm of telepathy.

However, the same is true for casters. What if I want my Wizard to cast Silence or my Cleric to cast Vortex Warp?

Those two simple examples are actually more difficult than getting Suggestion on a fighter.

Through.... gaining access to spells.

Build choices to get it!

You are complaining that other classes get to cast spells and do these things, you want your fighter to be able to do these things like those other classes do ..... but you don't want to cast spells.

If you want your fighter to cast suggesting build a fighter that has access to suggestion and 2nd level spells.

I don't think your complaint has any merit.

Really? Because if a Bard wanted to, say, read someone's mind to better be able to persuade a character towards a course of action... they innately have that option available to them. Additionally, unless the DM actively works to prevent this, the Bard can do so without giving up anything that they traditionally want. Their power in combat is unaffected by getting this option, unlike the Fighter.

Sure different classes have different core abilities.

A Bard who choses to do this gives up a spell known and nothing else. It is relatively low cost. A fighter gives up a feat or picks a specific subclass.

But a Bard needs to run a 12 Constitution to get 6hps per level and a Bard needs to pick a specific subclass to get extra attack, gets it later, and never gets 3 attacks.

Considering how many people survive being shot with arrows without their faces being destroyed, I disagree. Fire as hot as what a wizard is throwing is horrific.

Many, many more people (virtually the entire population) has survived being burned. I have been burned more times than I can count, most recently on Saturday. I have never been shot with an arrow and I can't imagine being even grazed with an arrow is going to be more damaging than a 1st degree burn and the vast majority of 2nd degree burns.

Well.... THAT'S A SERIOUS PROBLEM! IF there is no reason to play a non-magical character, you have a badly designed game on your hands.

It is not a problem at all. It is freedom. It is choice and play fighters often.

So... the benefit is being worse in all ways? Whoo. So exciting.

The benefit is playing the character you want to play. If you want to play a character without any magic, then having an option to choose a character without any magic is a benefit.

As long as your character is viable, being better or worse is irrelevant if your goals are based on the character thematics.

Now if your goal is to be powerful then being weak is a problem, but it is one easily remedied by making a powerful character.

And what do non-martial characters have to induce effects anywhere close to this? Also, many of the offenders are either instant combat enders if the enemy fails the save (and there are a plethora of ways to increase the chances of that happening) or have no save at all.

There is no way to increase the chance of an enemy failing a save when they use legendary resistance or when they are immune to the condition your "instant combat ender" causes.

As someone who has played a lot at high level (15+) over the last 2 years, I can say confidently that damage is the best way to bring down many enemies. At high levels there are a lot of enemies fighters (even those with low constitution) excel at battling.

When those spells are effective, they are effective but when they are not they are near useless.

I'm so glad my entire character concept allows the wizard to choose to not overshadow me.

???? Then what is the problem?

Have you ever noticed it never goes the other way? There is never a time the fighter or rogue goes "oh, we have a wizard/cleric/bard/druid so I don't need to choose X ability". It is always that the existence of the martial allows the wizard to swap a SINGLE SPELL.

This happens all the time IME. Teleport, Fly, Calm emotions, various healing spells .....

There are all kinds of spell selections that affect the choices of other characters in a team game.

And so can everyone else.

As a reminder, what I said was "every class can do impossible things by 11th level"

So yes you are agreeing with me and impossible things are not unique to spells, casters or magic. All classes can do impossible things, like I said!

And this is only if the DM decides to allow it, sometimes DMs call such things impossible and kill your character for falling that height. Unless of course you have magic to allow flight, teleportation, feather fall, ect.

RAW is RAW. If your DM is not playing RAW, then I don't know what to tell you.

Arguing over how DMs implement homebrew is not of much value IMO.

More importantly, as noted above all characters can do impossible things by level 11. This is not unique to spellcasters. If your DM curbs that then that is specific to your game and not reflective of class abilities.

Additionally, "I jumped from a tall building and took a bunch of damage" isn't exactly something that generally solves a problem or overcomes a challenge in the game.

Actually I have played 2 games in the last year where it explicitly solved a problem (Rise of the Drow and Rime of the Frostmaiden) .... or at least enabled survival.

So, nothing in the base class, unlike all of the wizards/clerics/bards/druids in the game, who we only ever discuss the base class abilities.

Feats are part of the base class.

I will also point out that casters do not have any specific spells or specific abilities that spells enable as part of the base class. They actually need to choose spells before they can do these "impossible" things. Non-casters have similar choices they can make to do additional "impossible" things. A smaller less diverse subset of choices, but choices just the same.

No Wizard has the ability to cast suggestion and no Bard has the ability to read minds as part of the "base class". They need to make choices to enable that. Similarly a Fighter could make choices to enable either of those two things.

I mean, you are kind of proving the point I'm trying to make. At every turn you have basically said "If the fighter chooses to gain access to spells, they can do the things the other classes can do, only worse than those classes."

Yes, if a fighter wants to cast spells they need to get spells. I think that is pretty obvious.

Meanwhile, the fighter's greatest feats include falling on their faces, hitting things with weapons... and that's it.

I never said that. What I said is all classes can do impossible things at 11th level, and that statement is 100% true.

You are trying to put words into my mouth.

Something everyone else can do. Heck, I've built druids and Clerics to be very deadly in melee. It isn't hard.

Sure you can optimize and build Clerics that are great at melee. This is what is great about 5E.

Druids are a lot harder if you want them to be great across all 20 levels. They can be really good from about 2-8 and then again at high level. They are going to be mediocre in the middle though.

Niether of those two caster will be good at all three pillars though and niether of them will be as good at melee as a fighter who is optimized for that.

To be better at melee at most levels than a fighter optimized for melee you need to play a Wizard, Ranger or multiclass.

So.... what is the problem with adding new abilities to the martial characters, off-loading the design into the skill system, and gaining access to it via an ability, in the same way the Weapon Mastery system was designed? Why is this unacceptable?

We can already do that. Fighters get feats and feats do this. Why is that unacceptable?

Also I hate the weapon mastery system developed for ONE.