D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Minigiant]

Sure, and a lot of his abilities come from, or are enhanced by, gadgets, computers, and equipment: aka magic items. He is actually a bad example of the super martial because so much of what he does is enhanced by his equipment. That is the D&D way since forever!

Bstman is

• A expert detective
• An ace pilot
• An expert driver
• A trained ninja
• A Top 10 martial artist on the planet
• An dabbler in multiple sciences and histories

All BEFORE gadgets. Batman is the best fighter in Gotham and chooses to nerf himself with fists and boomerangs instead of stabbing criminal organizations silent in the dark.

Batman is crazy skilled before gear. And this is the trend in both Western and Asian media for Badass Normals. In media, Badass Normal grow exponentially, masting multiple skills and knowledges.

The martial who have ONE notable feature who get to high levels are usually Supernatural. Your Hulks, Samson's, Flashes, and Blobs.

The martial who is stressed as not being supernatural but deals with high level threats usually gain MULTIPLE strong nonmagical features. Your Batman and Robins, your Arrows, your John Wicks,, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and human SHIELD agents.

It's 2 different roads not 1.

Achilles route or Odysseus.route.

 

[Minigiant]

See here is my issue with our conversation. We are coming from two different perspectives I think (well at least 2). You are talking about support as if we are discussing a real game. I am, and have been from my first post on this thread, talking about a conceptual D&D that I would like to see.

I absolutely think it should be a spectrum. Let's provide options for all types of martial warriors. I think you get most of them covered in 1-20 lvls and them some truly mythic ones in 21-30 or perhaps something like mythic boons past 20.

I'm not coming at a different perspective.

I'm saying there is a fork in the road few want to admit exists and some don't even want to get to the fork to discuss it.

 

[dave2008]

OK,

Bstman is

• A expert detective
• An ace pilot
• An expert driver
• A trained ninja
• A Top 10 martial artist on the planet
• An dabbler in multiple sciences and histories

All BEFORE gadgets. Batman is the best fighter in Gotham and chooses to nerf himself with fists and boomerangs instead of stabbing criminal organizations silent in the dark.

Batman is crazy skilled before gear. And this is the trend in both Western and Asian media for Badass Normals. In media, Badass Normal grow exponentially, masting multiple skills and knowledges.

The martial who have ONE notable feature who get to high levels are usually Supernatural. Your Hulks, Samson's, Flashes, and Blobs.

The martial who is stressed as not being supernatural but deals with high level threats usually gain MULTIPLE strong nonmagical features. Your Batman and Robins, your Arrows, your John Wicks,, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and human SHIELD agents.

OK, what is your point? He can do mundane things? So can D&D characters, what is you point?

It's 2 different roads not 1.

Achilles route or Odysseus.route.

I hope this is not it.

 

[dave2008]

I'm not coming at a different perspective.

I'm saying there is a fork in the road few want to admit exists and some don't even want to get to the fork to discuss it.

I can see creating a fork in the road, but why? What does that get you?

Again, I am not discussing what we have, but what we could have. Why create the fork?

 

[Minigiant]

OK,

OK, what is your point? He can do mundane things? So can D&D characters, what is you point?


I hope this is not it.

I can see creating a fork in the road, but why? What does that get you?

Again, I am not discussing what we have, but what we could have. Why create the fork?

The fork legitimizes the supernatural martial.

The Supernatural Martial is held back by the nebulous state of the line.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We have a game where dragons the size of passenger liners can fly, without it being considered magical in nature.

Give the martial a little room to be able to do a bit of the fantastic without having a meltdown about it being a spell. Let them beat the Olympic record for a long jump without having to use a jump spell to do it. Let him one-shot the BBEG's sub-boss.

It doesn't have to be something they can do every. single. time. They can be per short rest, long rest or longer-to-recharge abilities.

I mean, we already have the likes of Second Wind and Action Surge as templates to frame the wording, why not give them some higher-level oomph?

Actually, even the WotC people acknowledge that dragon flight is magical. It's just not spell-like and thus not effected by things that affect spells. Supernatural fighter abilities shouldn't be either. Supernatural effects and abilities are not spells.

 

[dave2008]

The fork legitimizes the supernatural martial.

The Supernatural Martial is held back by the nebulous state of the line.

Sorry you have lost me now. I thought you wanted to legitimize the mundane martial. And is it a fork or a line?

So are you saying the mundane martial should be alongside the supernatural martial from the start instead of the mundane martial evolving into supernatural martial?

If so, I would not call that a fork, but parallel structures.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So are you saying the mundane martial should be alongside the supernatural martial from the start instead of mundane martial evolving into supernatural martial?

They might not, but I sure am.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My point is that they don't have to be supernatural.

The targets just can be really hard normal stuff.

Like... what? Let us assume that Item AC from the DMG correlates to Hardness. The strongest mundane material (so strong it makes a suit of armor made from it into a magical item) is Adamantium. It has an AC of 23.

Sure, maybe we can say that the heart of a dying quasar is completely mundane and has an AC of 30... but anything made from it would be classified as a magical item anyways. And I would also say that it has supernatural significance. Being made of matter isn't a sure sign that something is "mundane" and something of that stature in the cosmos would be far from "mundane" in a fantasy setting.

Yeah.

But you can't even do not impressive normal stuff.

That's my issue with the conversation.

"Hight Not Supernatural Martial" isn't even defined not has rules to even determine what the Supernatural Martial is.

Where's the line?

We go from common knight and bandit captain straight to Thor and Hercules with nothing in between. The Illiad is Hoplite #362 and Achilles. All the other guys in the book, unsupported.

Because those guys at levels 9 to 14 are going to be squishy and stretchy concepts anyways. And it makes far far more since to figure out where the end of the line is, then back-fill, than it would be to figure out each step on the ladder. Especially since we have a lot of people who would love Hoplite #362 to be a 17th level fighter, because the Hoplites were elite soldiers.

And frankly, the line doesn't matter nearly as much as what we want to do. I don't want Fighters and Rogues to have +25 to hit and deal an extra 50 damage per strike plus bleed damage. That doesn't actually help them. I want to increase mobility, battlefield control, exploration. I want to have a Fighter that can truly stand on that level of myth and legend. I don't like we need to compare them to gods and demigods, but Western mythology sucks at having ordinary dudes who don't get smeared into a paste.

Should Thor or Hercules be the limit of the Fighter? Depends what you meany by Thor or Hercules. The thing is, we don't want them to be stuck at "War Veteran" levels. We don't want John McClain who in the second movie was matched in badass scenes by a Harlem Store Owner. We don't want Boromir who was likely level 4. Some of us don't even want Batman or Tony Stark, since that translates into "money and magic items" for so many people, and that feels like a crutch for some of us.

So yeah, I don't particularly care to figure out where Ajax the Greater fits on the grand scheme of the fighter, because I'm still trying to tell people that grumpy store clerks and dead not!princes aren't 20th level mythic heroes who challenge gods and things that the gods fear.

 

[dave2008]

They might not, but I sure am.

The only issue I have with that is balance.

If Heracles, supernatural martial, can hold the sky on his shoulders how does that balance against Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, mundane martial, deadlifting 1,105 lbs?*

"...and due to breaking 90+ world records in various static lifts and other feats displaying brute strength, many analysts and strongman experts regard him as "the strongest man to have ever walked the earth"