D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[Chaosmancer]

Not exactly. Closest thing to that in this thread is probably the below post. But this thread is still young . When one comes to light I’ll tag you.

Yeah, since they are talking about making a Prestige class that gives abilities, which would be available to already supernatural martials like Paladins, Barbarians and Rangers too, I'm not really seeing this "if fighters become magical, then they can do anything" line you were worried about.

And sure, if the conversation turns to someone claiming they want fighters to cast wish, raise the dead, shoot lasers from their eyes, and bake the perfect souffle with a single action, then I will support you in telling them that that is too much.

 

[dave2008]

To @Minigiant, with regard to the mundane martial and the supernatural martial, how would you balance them if they are not additive? From another post in this thread:

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?*

*World Record and "...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"

 

[Minigiant]

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.

I'd prefer 2 different classes myself 2, 3, or even 6 lines.

But the option of "At level 10, choose Mundane, Supernatural, or Overt Magical" as a fork is an option.

 

[Minigiant]

To @Minigiant, with regard to the mundane martial and the supernatural martial, how would you balance them if they are not additive? From another post in this thread:

The same way media does.

The Mundane Martial grow mostly horizontially in skills and knowledge you typically can't get reliably in number with magic and in ways that outclass dabblers.
The Supernatural Martial grow rapidly vertically in one area and creatively attempts to hammer it into every problem as nails.

It's only D&D and D&Desque clones that remain genre blind to the concept so hard that they end up blindly fandoms to the simple paths.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Batman is

Okay but... what does this actually look like in practice?

• A expert detective

Expertise in Investigation, sure.

• An ace pilot

Expertise in Air Vehicles, okay

• An expert driver

Expertise in Land Vehicles, cool.

• A trained ninja

So... shadow monk or rogue? Let's stick with Rogue, he's mundane after all.

• A Top 10 martial artist on the planet

Oh dang, that's just monk. Maybe use the Fighting Style at least?

• An dabbler in multiple sciences and histories

So... skill prof in history and "arcana" since that is the closest we can get to science.


Let's ignore the convolution of the "top 10 martial artist" for just a moment. How could we possibly get Expertise in a single skill, two other skills, and expertise in land and air vehicles?

Uh... two levels in Rogue? Okay, technically you only need a single level in rogue to get all of that, but Batman is very fast and sneaky, so I gave him the second level so he can have Cunning Action. Oh, and technically you can't get tool expertise like this from Expertise, but I've never met a DM who wouldn't let you downgrade like that, so it should be fine.

So, get the tool proficiencies from his background, he also gets Thieves Tools which covers the that.

Total of 7 skills, let's put Expertise in Investigation with the Skill Prodigy feat, which also gets us another skill. Stealth, Sleight of Hand, History, Perception, "Science", Medicine, Athletics? That covers more than you even stated.

Now, I'm sure you'll start coming up with "well actually!"s to say that I totally forgot that Batman can also [blank!] but even if you get me up to level 6 or 8 as a rogue... that's kind of it. Variant Human Rogue covers a huge swath of batman's skills and abilities, most of which would be seen as... utter wastes of time for most players. They wouldn't take land and air vehicle expertise, because that is frankly not worth it. Then they can get expertise in Stealth and Perception.


The thing is... low-level DnD characters are ALREADY highly skilled, polygot warriors who have mastered a wide variety of forms and techniques. People just insist that they aren't.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

The same way media does.

The Mundane Martial grow mostly horizontially in skills and knowledge you typically can't get reliably in number with magic and in ways that outclass dabblers.
The Supernatural Martial grow rapidly vertically in one area and creatively attempts to hammer it into every problem as nails.

It's only D&D and D&Desque clones that remain genre blind to the concept so hard that they end up blindly fandoms to the simple paths.

Me thinks it is you who is blind.

In the example given the mountain and Hercules are essentially the same class if you will. But of much different power levels. One is clearly a mundane martial and the other is supernatural martial. They cannot balance each other by offering different skills, feats, etc. Because they have access to those equally. one is somply so much more powerful than the other. You can only address that ina D&D style game with level. So in this concept, Hercules is an “evolution” of the mountain.

 

[Minigiant]

Okay but... what does this actually look like in practice?



Expertise in Investigation, sure.



Expertise in Air Vehicles, okay



Expertise in Land Vehicles, cool.



So... shadow monk or rogue? Let's stick with Rogue, he's mundane after all.



Oh dang, that's just monk. Maybe use the Fighting Style at least?



So... skill prof in history and "arcana" since that is the closest we can get to science.


Let's ignore the convolution of the "top 10 martial artist" for just a moment. How could we possibly get Expertise in a single skill, two other skills, and expertise in land and air vehicles?

Uh... two levels in Rogue? Okay, technically you only need a single level in rogue to get all of that, but Batman is very fast and sneaky, so I gave him the second level so he can have Cunning Action. Oh, and technically you can't get tool expertise like this from Expertise, but I've never met a DM who wouldn't let you downgrade like that, so it should be fine.

So, get the tool proficiencies from his background, he also gets Thieves Tools which covers the that.

Total of 7 skills, let's put Expertise in Investigation with the Skill Prodigy feat, which also gets us another skill. Stealth, Sleight of Hand, History, Perception, "Science", Medicine, Athletics? That covers more than you even stated.

Now, I'm sure you'll start coming up with "well actually!"s to say that I totally forgot that Batman can also [blank!] but even if you get me up to level 6 or 8 as a rogue... that's kind of it. Variant Human Rogue covers a huge swath of batman's skills and abilities, most of which would be seen as... utter wastes of time for most players. They wouldn't take land and air vehicle expertise, because that is frankly not worth it. Then they can get expertise in Stealth and Perception.


The thing is... low-level DnD characters are ALREADY highly skilled, polygot warriors who have mastered a wide variety of forms and techniques. People just insist that they aren't.

"Well Ackually"

That's expertise in at least 2 skills and 2 tools and proficiency in 4-5 other skills according to your post. So you are looking at multiple feats and classes and DM help according to your post.

 

[Minigiant]

Me thinks it is you who is blind.

In the example given the mountain and Hercules are essentially the same class if you will. But of much different power levels. One is clearly a mundane martial and the other is supernatural martial. They cannot balance each other by offering different skills, feats, etc. Because they have access to those equally. one is somply so much more powerful than the other. You can only address that ina D&D style game with level. So in this concept, Hercules is an “evolution” of the mountain.

I don't consider the Mountain high level.
ASOIAF is a sub level 8 setting. With few getting that high.

If you pull the Mountain to double digit levels you are growing out his mental/physical knowledge horizontally to a skill expert OR increasing his strength vertically to a giant.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The same way media does.

The Mundane Martial grow mostly horizontially in skills and knowledge you typically can't get reliably in number with magic and in ways that outclass dabblers.
The Supernatural Martial grow rapidly vertically in one area and creatively attempts to hammer it into every problem as nails.

It's only D&D and D&Desque clones that remain genre blind to the concept so hard that they end up blindly fandoms to the simple paths.

Media balances these things largely via metacurrency. I certainly wouldn't advocate that method in D&D.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don't consider the Mountain high level.
ASOIAF is a sub level 8 setting. With few getting that high.

If you pull the Mountain to double digit levels you are growing out his mental/physical knowledge horizontally to a skill expert OR increasing his strength vertically to a giant.

If you look at the link, he’s considered possibly the strongest man of all time. That is about as good as you can get on a mundane level (for a generic strongman class - same as Hercules.) The point is to get stronger / more powerful than that you have to go beyond that level. You have to go supernatural.

Now I don’t think anyone is arguing that you can’t add more skills, feats, functionality to a mundane martial, but at some point people want to go beyond that.

You can’t ever make Batman as strong as Superman unless you nerf / story weaken Superman. Sure, they can exist in the same fiction, but they are far from equal.