D&D 5E Casters vs Martials: Part 1 - Magic, its most basic components

[HammerMan]

But, if "martials" can do such things as jump crazy distances, or punch the ground to cause earthquakes, what is the point of having casters with spells that do it???

why would 1 character having equal ability take away form the other charcter?

Don't misunderstand me, Fighter is one of my favorite classes in 5E, so I love seeing martials get some luvin', but IMO such things don't really seem the way to go. There is already too much overlap in 5E for my tastes--too many classes with spells or spell-like features--so I would rather see some other avenue explored towards making martials more versatile/appealing/etc.

yes give them exploites that scale, they dont' have to be the exact same (they can be though) but at least equal options.

 

[Neonchameleon]

FWIW, people (a.k.a. commoners) who fall 4 floors (48 feet) actually live 50% of the time, albeit certainly very injured most of the time! I don't know if you consider roughly 50 feet "tall" for a building or not, but I would think it should qualify. shrug

And that's another issue. D&D characters literally never get seriously injured. In any edition. If you're on 1hp you're every bit as functional as full hp. If you want to call that "mundane", I can only disagree.

There's surviving and there's walking away. I'll admit that I said surviving when I meant walking away.

Mundane can still be awesomely heroic. Look at the things people do IRL! People survive multiple gun shots, falling from insane heights (the record is 10's of thousands of feet!), getting hit by cars (which ACTUALLY happened to me when I was in 7th grade!), and so on.

Indeed. Look at things people do IRL. Then let the fighters be able to match that. A hit from a high level fighter with a sword should be a save or die attack simply because it's a long and sharp piece of metal wielded by a skilled user. There shouldn't be ablative armour for everyone against fighters. And fighters should be able to one shot e.g. ogres (59hp in 5e).

But because of the hit point mechanism the fighters may be "mundane" (which in practice means they move like first level characters at any level) but their weapons are nerf weapons.

But I will concede that IMO 12th level is a good cap for "mundane", but that is also because I consider 6th and higher level spells what I call High Magics in my games. Many of the spells at these levels can drastically alter the course of an encounter, something martials can do (the awesomely heroic), but it is much more difficult and often requires quite a bit of luck.

IMO 12th level is the highest viable cap for the class based on the way it's written. I also find that the two "gatekeeper" spells are Fly and Wall of Stone. Fly for when spells really start to render some of the fighter's strengths irrelevant and Wall of Stone giving the ability to permanently strategically effect the world for temporary resources in ways the fighter never can.

 

[HammerMan]

That complaint about a 20 strength 8 int 8cha 10wis fighter with gwm & sentinel is "limited" outside of combat tends to be what these threads come down to & seems to have been the case in this one from the start given at one point it was complained that arthur without Excalibur sword & scabbard is not as good as another arthur with Excalibur sword & scabbard so the base arthur should be improved & we should ignore the resulting improved arthur plus Excalibur sword & scabbard

it's worse then that though...

Arthur is a great leader of men, he is the king not because the magic chose him, the magic chose him for being the man who SHOULD be king.

a 4e Warlord makes a GREAT Arthur (with or without a magic sword and scabard)
a 5e battle master fighter 5+/Bard (sword or valor)5/Rogue mastermind 3 makes a decent Arthur with some DM buy in for reflavor
a 5e paliden of the crown/bard (sword or valor)/ warlock (blade/hexblade) works a bit better without the DM buy in but still needs it for reflavor...

notice that 4e doesn't need magic, 5e need multi classing and magic.

 

[HammerMan]

That fixes nothing. It's just saying you'll get to be useful once the Real Heroes are too tired to continue.

Just let martials be fun instead of 100% mundane as seen through the lens of game designers who do not know what the human body is full capable of.

word for word " you'll get to be useful once the Real Heroes are too tired to continue." is a COMPLAINT I have heard from a woman I started playing with in early 90's but it only started in 3e (went away in 4e but came back with 5e) and Fighter is her favorite class

 

[DND_Reborn]

why would 1 character having equal ability take away form the other charcter?

Because of niche/role protection (in some ways), which allows each character to contribute in their own way.

For instance, I've seen games where two PCs had a lot of stuff that overlapped, and it sort of devalued both because, as the song goes, "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you."

5E has a lot of magic and spell-like features in martial classes (mostly via subclasses). Frankly, it bothers me and detracts from the idea that the "magical" classes should be the "magical" classes. It is like in "The Incredibles", when Dash's mom is talking to him in the car about using his super speed, she says, "Everyone's special, Dash" and his reply: "Which is just another way of saying no one is..."

I mean, martials already have the best HP and AC, IME, not to mention they can do a lot of their stuff at will, compared to the spell-slot limitation of casters, even if their stuff is more powerful. For better or worse, that has always been the balance in D&D.

Anyway, as I've said, I am all for making higher level martials "better" to the point of awesomely heroic, but not to the point of "super heroes" simply because that isn't what I want to play. I wrote before a perfect example of improving a mundane feature would be Remarkable Athlete:

Instead of this:

Make the second part:

In addition, when you make a running long jump, the distance you can cover increases by a number of feet equal to your levels in this class. When you make a running high jump, increase the height you can jump by half your levels in this class.

Finally, as a bonus action, you can increase your speed by a number of feet equal to 5 times your proficiency bonus. This increase lasts until the end of the round. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest (maybe allow in proficiency uses per long rest instead???).

If you look at the modifications in the first part, jumping, what would this mean to a 15th level fighter with STR 18 giving the rules for jumping?

RAW, the fighter could long jump 22 feet (18 STR + 4 STR mod). Honestly, that is pathetic! In high school I could long jump 21 feet (albeit landing in a sandy pit and not in plate armor LOL).

With my suggestion, the fighter could jump 33 feet (18 + 15), which breaks our world record by over 3 feet! Make it a 20th level fighter with STR 10 and you are long jumping 40 feet with just a 10-foot approach!

Look at the rules for lifting weights. A STR 20 PC can lift 600 lb. The rules don't really specify what sort of "lift", so we could easily means this means a full press overhead if we want. Make it a race with powerful build and you double that (although now it is non-human...). Anyway, 600 lb. for an overhead lift is above all IRL records. Sure, there all sorts of other lifts which IRL are way more than 600 lb. so it depends on how your table wants to run the "lift" mechanics/ rules. shrug

That is what I mean by awesomely heroic, but not super heroic. It wouldn't take much rules fiddling to make martials approach even greater awesomeness. If you want super heroic, just take it even further...

 

[HammerMan]

No, they shouldn't have to be. Some players don't WANT their master swordsman to HAVE to be fantastical. And if they don't want to, they shouldn't have to. The game, the DMs, and the community should respect their wishes to be able to play a character that isn't that.

They should be able to as well, of course, if that's what they want.

but there are LOTs of options for ones that DONT want complex or fanastical martial characters... for ones the WANT complex or fantastic martial characters they have to take spell caster and refluff

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Yeah.... This sort of thing would need a specific concept, story or power source in order to make sense for me, not just "because I'm an archer"

I understand your preference, but I have no trouble myself with it. Paris killed Achilles by striking his heel. I am not a specialist of human physiology and being hit at the heel is certainly painful and/or devastating, but deadly? Heroic archers can do already ludicrous things, like cutting the rope of a hanged man (while spells often targets creatures or area, rarely an object), why not expand on this (it would need mechanical support, but not necessarily, to me, another power source). Being unable to be surprised is a thing, reacting so fast you're surprising those who ambushed you in the first place is the next "logical" step and certainly something that should be explored without relying on any "magical gift". Just.. praeternally good ability at doing things. If anything, having caster being toned up to utility and toned done in fight could be a thing, but I guess this sort of balancing is made impossible because playstyles vary too much (some are doing classical dungeons with the recommanded 8 fights a day, others are going whole sessions without fight...)

Mostly I just think it'd be funny if the whole narrative of "no one plays past 10" is indicative of the quality of the content past 10 rather than the attributes of the audience.

I doubt that's the case, since I'm inclined to believe that the social aspects of the game are generally more important than the mechanical. But I would have a good chuckle if there were evidence otherwise.

There is probably a lot of campaign fatigue: it would be interesting to see how far campaigns starting at level 5 or 7 fare. Do they peter out as well or do they go to 15-17?

But yes, it's a death spiral: if few people plays at levels above 10, the incentive to provide solid mechanical support for tier 3 and 4 diminishes, less adventures are published for them, so players gets fewer option to play in them, and all conspires to just starting again.

 

[DND_Reborn]

And that's another issue. D&D characters literally never get seriously injured. In any edition. If you're on 1hp you're every bit as functional as full hp. If you want to call that "mundane", I can only disagree.

I agree completely, but that's a whole different issue!

Fully functioning a 1 hp has been a long-standing issue for many people. I don't have an issue with that because of my understanding of what hit points represent, but that is also a different issue.

There's surviving and there's walking away. I'll admit that I said surviving when I meant walking away.

Fair enough. I've have to look for it, but I know the record for falling and literally walking away was something over 10000 feet IIRC. Either way, it was a ridiculous height. Common, no, but nothing magical or super heroic about it, even if awesome.

A hit from a high level fighter with a sword should be a save or die attack simply because it's a long and sharp piece of metal wielded by a skilled user. There shouldn't be ablative armour for everyone against fighters. And fighters should be able to one shot e.g. ogres (59hp in 5e).

Well, to a point I can agree with this. Due to the HP bloat in 5E (and other editions), you need mechanics to represent such skill. We've been toying with a "mook rule" at our table. It stemmed from the idea of Gandalf riding in front of a troll at Minas Tirith (?) and one-hitting it so it dropped.

Our idea was something like if your half your level equals or exceeds the CR of the creature, you "kill it" on a critical hit, regardless of hit points. Admittedly, we haven't play-tested it and it is low on our list at present, but you get the idea. This would allow any fighter of 4th level or higher a chance to one-hit an ogre. If you don't want it to be on a crit, make it a save or something.

IMO 12th level is the highest viable cap for the class based on the way it's written. I also find that the two "gatekeeper" spells are Fly and Wall of Stone. Fly for when spells really start to render some of the fighter's strengths irrelevant and Wall of Stone giving the ability to permanently strategically effect the world for temporary resources in ways the fighter never can.

While I understand this, fighters have strengths casters don't. Sure, a wizard might fly, but nothing stops the fighter from shooting him with a bow or something, and since fly is now a concentration spell, that wizard is in trouble if he fails the concentration check! Fly is also a limited resource due to spell slots, and a fighter can have a whole heck of a lot more arrows than the caster has spell slots!

And Wall of Stone can be permanent, but why would a fighter want to do it? They have their own things, even if what they can do is not as varied as the wide array of magic spells available to casters. Even if you wanted to, a fighter could build the wall. It might take him all day and he'll need the resources, but he can do it. A caster might make a Wall of Stone, but unless they have multiple higher level spell slots, they aren't doing it more than a couple times...

Anyway, I don't see much point in debating examples. Instead of trying to make it so martials can do things casters can via magic, I would focus instead on giving martials their own things.

 

[HammerMan]

Because of niche/role protection (in some ways), which allows each character to contribute in their own way.

Niche protection should be at the table... and it is about chooseing powers abilities and features. Giving the OPTION of an earthquake punch to martials doesn't mean both the cleric and the fighter NEED to take it.

For instance, I've seen games where two PCs had a lot of stuff that overlapped, and it sort of devalued both because, as the song goes, "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you."

yup mostly with casters (wizard and cleric being the most jack of all trades even though THAT niche/role was supposed to be bard)

5E has a lot of magic and spell-like features in martial classes (mostly via subclasses). Frankly, it bothers me and detracts from the idea that the "magical" classes should be the "magical" classes.

we agree there... I would LOVE if they stopped adding magic and spells and made more exploits/manuivers that had a supernatural or mystic quality.

It is like in "The Incredibles", when Dash's mom is talking to him in the car about using his super speed, she says, "Everyone's special, Dash" and his reply: "Which is just another way of saying no one is..."

um... did you watch that movie, that point gets refuted pretty hard (it is the bad guys philosophy too) because everyone CAN be special as long as they all have niche/role... Mr Incredible isn't as fast as dash, and violet is only one with force fields...

I mean, martials already have the best HP and AC, IME, not to mention they can do a lot of their stuff at will, compared to the spell-slot limitation of casters, even if their stuff is more powerful. For better or worse, that has always been the balance in D&D.

lol... you have never seen a caster beat the fighter in AC... I envy you.

Anyway, as I've said, I am all for making higher level martials "better" to the point of awesomely heroic, but not to the point of "super heroes" simply because that isn't what I want to play. I wrote before a perfect example of improving a mundane feature would be Remarkable Athlete:

Instead of this:
View attachment 148699

it's cool you don't want superheroics... if those options get put there you can just take the simple ones over it.. why would us haveing our options hurt you?

RAW, the fighter could long jump 22 feet (18 STR + 4 STR mod). Honestly, that is pathetic! In high school I could long jump 21 feet (albeit landing in a sandy pit and not in plate armor LOL).

yes the fact that the rules don't allow a Str 20 trained in athletics fighter at level 20 to be able to win any Olympic event (when at that level str and training he should win almost all of them) is part of the "Normal" problem people have with martial options.

Look at the rules for lifting weights. A STR 20 PC can lift 600 lb. The rules don't really specify what sort of "lift", so we could easily means this means a full press overhead if we want. Make it a race with powerful build and you double that (although now it is non-human...). Anyway, 600 lb. for an overhead lift is above all IRL records. Sure, there all sorts of other lifts which IRL are way more than 600 lb. so it depends on how your table wants to run the "lift" mechanics/ rules. shrug

again a 20th level fighter should SURPASS any record I can google of a real strength challange.
Weightlifting: 'The Mountain' Bjornsson deadlifts 501 kg to set world record. (Reuters) - Icelandic actor and strongman Hafthor Bjornsson set a world record for the deadlift on Saturday when he lifted 1,104 pounds (501 kg) at Thor's Power Gym in Iceland.
so yeah double the 600 is just within REAL LIFE human range...

That is what I mean by awesomely heroic, but not super heroic. It wouldn't take much rules fiddling to make martials approach even greater awesomeness. If you want super heroic, just take it even further...

yes we want WOTC to do that...

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because of niche/role protection (in some ways), which allows each character to contribute in their own way.

You can't have niche/role protection while having magic users and muggles in the same party. Right now it is the utter insistence by some people that fighter types be mundane that is making niche protection, almost by definition, impossible.

And if we want niche protection we're going to have to put the wizard through a shredder anyway. "Is the best at magic and their magic can do anything except heal" is the sort of thing that undermines niche protection.

I mean, martials already have the best HP and AC, IME,

Martials don't have the best ACs. How good you are with weapons does little to allow you to parry blows. The best AC belongs IME to Paladin/Sorcerer multiclasses who supplement their plate armour and shield with the Shield spell. Followed by combat clerics with plate armour, shield, and Shield of Faith

And the best hp? That's barbarians - who don't have the best AC. Paladins beat fighters in terms of hp - and thanks to better healing so in practice do clerics.

And martials includes rogues. Who don't have excessive hp or AC.

not to mention they can do a lot of their stuff at will, compared to the spell-slot limitation of casters, even if their stuff is more powerful. For better or worse, that has always been the balance in D&D.

So the martials aren't mundane - they are in fact untiring robots. And this just means that the martials are the sidekicks, handling the chaff while the casters take over when things get serious.

The original balance in D&D was twofold:

1. The wizard got all their spells known after first level as loot rather than as a consequence of levelling up so couldn't be tailored
2. The fighters got first pick off the loot table for weapons (80% of random magic weapons in oD&D are swords, and 40% in AD&D, swords have higher plusses than other weapons, and clerics couldn't use swords)

Of course 3.0 decided to dump the class balance, removing the limitations on wizards and the things fighters had near exclusive access to.

RAW, the fighter could long jump 22 feet (18 STR + 4 STR mod). Honestly, that is pathetic! In high school I could long jump 21 feet (albeit landing in a sandy pit and not in plate armor LOL).

With my suggestion, the fighter could jump 33 feet (18 + 15), which breaks our world record by over 3 feet! Make it a 20th level fighter with STR 10 and you are long jumping 40 feet with just a 10-foot approach!

And your suggestion is still pathetic for a 20th level character when a seventeenth level an permanently shapechange into a dragon and fly all day long because of it. It looks awesome but is basically irrelevant.

Sure, there all sorts of other lifts which IRL are way more than 600 lb. so it depends on how your table wants to run the "lift" mechanics/ rules. shrug

The rules say lifting - meaning that a Str 20 fighter (without powerful build) can't lift over 600lb even through one of these other forms of lifting.