D&D 5E The Door, Player Expectations, and why 5e can't unify the fanbase.

[Remathilis]

I say

Screw it.
The mundane fighter gets bonuses to ability scores every X levels after a certain point and become as powerful as the monsters they once fought.

Then have a mythic warrior that does the near supernatural actions.

THEN have plenty of templates that can be paid in good and/XP to get divine blood, magic fighting, super speed, troop arms, and instructions on how to craft Swords of Omens.

BUT BUT BUT WE WANT THE FIGHTER TO BE MYTHIC! AND IN THE PHB TOO!

There appears to be the belief that a fighter who is good at fighting isn't enough. He needs to wrestle geography and win, jump impossible distances, Make Ithilids poo their robes with a stern glance, and level whole forests in one swordstroke. Because he has to keep up with the wizard in "stuff I can do" and if the wizard can fly, become invisible, shrug off swordblows or open locks with a touch, the fighter should do so too (or something equally as cool).

From my perspective, a person who can shake off a 100' fall or an enormous magical fireball right to the face is, de facto, something out of myth.

Come to think of it, the most sensible way to rationalize the D&D power curve is to treat all PCs as if they're proto-demigods, every one of them a little Achilles or Herakles in training.

Doing this neatly explains why they can attain class levels while virtually everyone else can't -- at least under AD&D/2e. I realize 3e introduces the possibility of Shoalin Soccer-style high-level NPC classes, and such amusing constructs as the uber-waitress who's tougher than your average grizzled veteran sergeant --a real Eberror NPC, BTW.

This line will take us straight back to hit point logic and level problems. HP allows for "mythic" action because its a function of game mechanic, and it creates all sort of wonky issues: (A 2nd level fighter using a potion of invisibility and a longsword cannot kill a 10th level mage sitting quietly at his desk reading due to damage output vs. HP. I guess a 10th level mage without spells is still a better fighter than a 2nd level fighter).

The upper branches of mythic are not the whole of mythic, any more than "everyone eventually catches the plague or gets knifed in a dark alley" are the sum of gritty.

We talk about the extremes so that we don't have a 500 post topic arguing about whether James Bond crossed the line when he parachuted off the cliff in the Spy Who Loved Me or ran ahead of space shuttle fumes in Moonraker or had completely crossed the line in the infamous crawling outside the plane stunt in Octopussy. (Bond is an easier example of where that problem lies, since it is a single character straddling the line, over a long, fairly consistent franchise.)

I'm legitimately curious at this point: What should the mythic fighter BE doing during-and-out-of-combat at, say, 11th level compared to his wizard buddy, who has legend lore or disintergrate. I don't want ancedotes, I want as close to game-functional mechanics as possible.

In short, I want to see exactly what lies between full attack and mountain tossing.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't know what else to say. In D&D, heroes have tended to be warriors of fate, like just action heroes are heroes of improbability. That's the only quality I can compare them.

Of course, I cannot directly compare the context in which action heroes operate to the context in which fantasy heroes operate.

But nobody thinks twice to pull characters from myths and plunk them into D&D like a fish out of water, without a 2nd thought about stripping out the context in which those mythical characters were pulled from, even D&D lacks many mythical dream logic characteristics, and much of the mythicalness is actually just the awful way the mechanics meet the fiction and not intentional at all, like a bad silly plot device that makes no sense, vs myths that came out of a non-scientific irrational era. So call it an unfair double standard?

That's because what D&D purported to do in its examples (and source material) versus what the mechanics did once you got away from a large does of DM sleight of hand has always been at odds. Nobody thinks twice about trying to pull characters from myths and plunking them because D&D told them from the very beginning that this was a great idea. And all those Elminster/Mordekainan conclaves reported in the pages of Dragon did nothing to discourage them. In fact, it was such a strong instinct, it's survived for over 30 years now, in the face of not much support from the mechanics themselves.

The "D&D genre" that grew up around the rules as written is a huge part of D&D, but it is not all of D&D. Myth is only a fish out of water in the "D&D genre" itself.

 

[Minigiant]

Once you can take the claw/claw/bite/tail swipe routine of a dragon without moving from your 5 ft square, most descriptions come off as nonrealistic without magic or superhumanism.

But there is a range. Just like there are many mythical, literary, and comic heroes. From newly recruited Robin at level 1. Named SHIELD agents and Action heroes as 4th-6th level fighters. To peak humanoids and line straddlers like Odysseus, Batman, Bond, and Cap America. To obvious superhumans like Asgardians, Amazons, and Humans on Mars of a dozen levels or better. Then finally super powerful fighters of anime with at least 20 levels.

 

[Underman]

That's because what D&D purported to do in its examples (and source material) versus what the mechanics did once you got away from a large does of DM sleight of hand has always been at odds. Nobody thinks twice about trying to pull characters from myths and plunking them because D&D told them from the very beginning that this was a great idea. And all those Elminster/Mordekainan conclaves reported in the pages of Dragon did nothing to discourage them. In fact, it was such a strong instinct, it's survived for over 30 years now, in the face of not much support from the mechanics themselves.

The "D&D genre" that grew up around the rules as written is a huge part of D&D, but it is not all of D&D. Myth is only a fish out of water in the "D&D genre" itself.

I'm probably missing something, because I don't understand the reference to "Elminster/Mordekainan conclaves reported in the pages of Dragon" so I'll just keep talking...

You have to admit that Tolkien is inspired from mythology, but it doesn't have the same irrational tone as real-life myths. LoTR was so popular because it "modernized" myths into pseudo-rational serious fantasy palatable to a modern world in ways that real-life myths are not.

The D&D genre just kept going with that all this time. As long as the D&D game is trying to emulate the D&D genre, I'm down with that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm legitimately curious at this point: What should the mythic fighter BE doing during-and-out-of-combat at, say, 11th level compared to his wizard buddy, who has legend lore or disintergrate. I don't want ancedotes, I want as close to game-functional mechanics as possible.

In short, I want to see exactly what lies between full attack and mountain tossing.

Using those two spells as examples, and assuming that Legend Lore is a skill-replacement spell (you substitute Arcana for History - why would a wizard need to? - or something, an automatic 20 on a relevant check, maybe?), and Disintegrate instantly and un-raisably (not un-resurrectably) kills an enemy below a certain hp threshold on a failed save... Well, the fighter might be able to choose a limited-use 'maneuver' that instantly kills an enemy below a certain hp threshold on a hit - maybe a 'Heartstrike' that could be used with a bow or other piercing weapon, or a 'Decapitation Strike' with a slashing weapon that has the added bonus of giving you a head to take away, preventing raise dead - or maybe a 'Shattering Blow' using a bludgeoning weapon that also destroys inanimate objects efficiently? (None of those would be quite the same as disintegrate, which forces a save, and has the advantages of all three I just outlined - range, preventing raising, /and/ destroying objects, so really, even bundling the three into one, based on weapon used at the moment, wouldn't be unreasonable.) Any class with an appropriate skill (history or heraldry or whatever - fighter would be a fair candidate for heraldry) might be given the option of choosing a limited-use 'skill power' that lets them guarantee a high roll on a particular skill or otherwise give them a chance to gain some useful information about a 'legendary' item.


Or didn't you mean quite as on-the-nose as mapping directly to the two spells you mention?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm legitimately curious at this point: What should the mythic fighter BE doing during-and-out-of-combat at, say, 11th level compared to his wizard buddy, who has legend lore or disintergrate. I don't want ancedotes, I want as close to game-functional mechanics as possible.

In short, I want to see exactly what lies between full attack and mountain tossing.

Well understand I'm working from a particular context here that might not be shared in the wider game. So my examples are subject to adjustment with criticism. And I'm not fully answering your question here, as stated. But I'll give it a shot ...

Given some related asides about the future of Next by various people, I'm going to state as my context that roughly levels 1-4 are "apprentice" where characters are going to be pretty "mundane"--even casters. Errol Flynn-typic antics are possible, but not necessarily a good gamble. Swinging on that chandelier is worth trying, but not with two orcs with halberds nearby.

Around levels 5-10, characters move into the more action hero type stuff. These are things like the various stuff that Legolas does to orcs in the film LotR. I'm thinking in particular of the scene at the end of Fellowship where Boromir dies. No one is really going to shoot arrows that well and then pull out knives at the last second or stab with an arrow in transition, but it's sitting there on the "edge of plausible" close enough that most people will let it slide. The shield sliding scene is more cheezy than implausible.

By the time Legolas is taking down elephants, he's has crossed that line. Whether he's 11th level or closing in on 20, he's a mythic character at that point. He's still vulnerable. He's still gonna die at the end if the ring doesn't end up taking a lava bath. He's nowhere near leaping 500 feet, though.

Gimli is a tougher example, because so much of his action hero stuff is methodical. He kills orcs like he is (would be) crafting armor. His more mythic stuff is actually off-screen--going into the West with Legolas despite being a dwarf. As such, it's easy to see this as plot device instead of something meaningfully mythic about his character.

So mechanics for this stuff is difficult in a vacuum. My contention (having played Hero System for many years where you grapple with such issues in high point Fantasy Hero games), is that you can imagine a Legolas with simply high enough skills and stats to pull off the "oilaphant" killing and claim it as non-mythic. But giving him those stats will also skew the mechanics too much in the other scenes. Those kind of mythic actions, short of something like Hercules, tend to be "spikes" in the story, not establishing an over-the-top level of mundane.

For a completely different example, consider Corwin from the Amber series. He's highly skilled in a host of mundane circumstances, extremely knowledgable (with key blind spots), very physically gifted, a superb swordsman and general--and besides the superlatives there, his mythic abilities are pretty much limited to walking through "shadows" to other dimensions, using "trumps," and other such capabilities from his blood line. So that suggest a good "mid-mythic" example ability for an otherwise mundane fighter--plane walking at some point, with some limits.

The tricky part about that last one is when you cross over from "superb warrior" to "warrior/mage". Corwin is a good example, I think, because he stays this side of the line, while his son Merlin is clearly and quite explicity across it. Merlin isn't as accomplished in the mundane as Corwin (though not shabby), but he creates and casts spells through the Logrus.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm probably missing something, because I don't understand the reference to "Elminster/Mordekainan conclaves reported in the pages of Dragon" so I'll just keep talking...

You have to admit that Tolkien is inspired from mythology, but it doesn't have the same irrational tone as real-life myths. LoTR was so popular because it "modernized" myths into pseudo-rational serious fantasy palatable to a modern world in ways that real-life myths are not.

The D&D genre just kept going with that all this time. As long as the D&D game is trying to emulate the D&D genre, I'm down with that.

There was this conceit that high level mages in various D&D worlds had ways of getting together, trading spells, complaining about the coffee service, etc. It tended to play up the higher end of magic for those that were more on the high fantasy wavelength.

I disagree with your assessment of LotR popularity, and would state that it has remained popular so long precisely because it emphatically did not cater to the modern mindset. That's one of the reason that Moorcock didn't like it after all, and part of what JRRT addressed in the preface to the second American edition. Myth is not rationalized. When myth starts revealing the truth, it's more akin to intuition than either deductive or inductive reasoning.

Myths have always had a wide range of tones. The more over-the-top stuff in the myths was done to cater to the same instincts that big explosions cater to now. People have always been people. The same Illiad that Achilles going after Hector so explosively also has catalogs of stuff. Pysche and Cupid is much more restrained than Zeus looking for his latest way to make Hera mad at him.

 

[Underman]

Myth is not rationalized. When myth starts revealing the truth, it's more akin to intuition than either deductive or inductive reasoning.

Just found this on Wikipedia: "But though mythology serves as a way to rationalize the universe in symbolic and often anthropomorphic ways, a pre-rational and irrational way of thinking can be seen as tacitly valued in mythology's supremacy of the imagination, where rationality as a philosophical method has not been developed."

 

[Remathilis]

Using those two spells as examples, and assuming that Legend Lore is a skill-replacement spell (you substitute Arcana for History - why would a wizard need to? - or something, an automatic 20 on a relevant check, maybe?), and Disintegrate instantly and un-raisably (not un-resurrectably) kills an enemy below a certain hp threshold on a failed save... Well, the fighter might be able to choose a limited-use 'maneuver' that instantly kills an enemy below a certain hp threshold on a hit - maybe a 'Heartstrike' that could be used with a bow or other piercing weapon, or a 'Decapitation Strike' with a slashing weapon that has the added bonus of giving you a head to take away, preventing raise dead - or maybe a 'Shattering Blow' using a bludgeoning weapon that also destroys inanimate objects efficiently? (None of those would be quite the same as disintegrate, which forces a save, and has the advantages of all three I just outlined - range, preventing raising, /and/ destroying objects, so really, even bundling the three into one, based on weapon used at the moment, wouldn't be unreasonable.) Any class with an appropriate skill (history or heraldry or whatever - fighter would be a fair candidate for heraldry) might be given the option of choosing a limited-use 'skill power' that lets them guarantee a high roll on a particular skill or otherwise give them a chance to gain some useful information about a 'legendary' item.


Or didn't you mean quite as on-the-nose as mapping directly to the two spells you mention?

Not specifically, but you prove my point.

A dozen pages back, I listed a bunch of things HL fighters should be doing. One of them was a auto-kill strike. However, I was told that wasn't powerful enough to keep up with the Merlins, so he should be able to do such things at like, 5th level.

So lets list a BUNCH of spell abilities and decide what the fighter should be doing to keep up with them. For fun, we'll toss in a few cleric spells as well, since a fighter should balance against ALL classes, not just the wizard (and besides, a cleric has good armor, hp and weapons so he's already got a foot up on fighters.) He doesn't need to do these exact things (aka a fighter sleep manuever) but he should be able do something equally as exciting, both in and out of combat.

How does a fighter match...

Magic Missile (W1): A auto-hit ranged attack
Sleep (W1): Slows/Disables a group of weak foes
Cure Light Wounds (C1): Restore HP to self/ally
Knock (W2): Automatically open one locked door
Invisibility (W2): Wander around stealthily until you attack
Fireball (W3): Large damage to all foes in a radius
Fly (W3): Move around off the ground
Invisibility Purge (C3): See the invisible around you
Stoneskin (W4): Melee attacks do not harm you/do less damage
Neutralize Poison (C4): Purge poison from a person
Teleport (W5): Go Anywhere, Instantly, with a chance of mess up.
Raise Dead (C5): Bring someone to life.

What's mythically on par with these abilities?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Just found this on Wikipedia: "But though mythology serves as a way to rationalize the universe in symbolic and often anthropomorphic ways, a pre-rational and irrational way of thinking can be seen as tacitly valued in mythology's supremacy of the imagination, where rationality as a philosophical method has not been developed."

The more you get away from hard facts, the less reliable Wikipedia becomes. If you want to make an argument, we can discuss it--perhaps in a branched topic if it drifts far afield. But I'm not going to get into a "cite authority" discussion. I took C.S. Lewis's advice. When I wanted to know more about myths, I didn't start reading what English departments had to say about myths--or to be fair, what he had to say about them. I went and read them for their own sakes.