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

[HammerMan]

Ok... Here we go:
Monk (Kensei) using Step of the Wind.
Use the "Cleaving through creatures" option in the DMG, p. 272, or play a Hunter Ranger with Whirlwind attack.
Be a dragonborn with the Dragon Fear racial feat.
Play a Cavalier with Unwavering Mark.
Be a raging barbarian with Indomitable Might.
Have a DM who actually uses morale.
Nice way to narrate an Assassin's Death Strike!
Hmm... ok, this one is tough, but given all the 5E material (official) out there that I don't know about, there is probably a way to do it.
Again, monk... maybe with some rogue (assassin) tossed in?

mostly this is "use magic or magic adjacent but not fighter"

now it took a bit to get used to my archer fighter being a ranger (until slayer came out) in 4e, but this is crayz (like my Arthur examples)

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

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...

yes we want WOTC to do that...

Yes. 20th level Herakles supported the weight of the celestial dome on his shoulders, albeit he struggled (ie, his DMed required a roll. Harsh DM, biased against martials).

Bjornsson, being a real life human, is just a human. Maybe a vuman, so he could get 12 STR (no reason for him not to start with the commoner array) and the Powerful build feat. Let's assume he has heroic potential (because, well, he's a world-leading expert) and got to start with the standard array (lucky him...) he's STR 17, with the doubling feat, that's 1,020 pounds. And he's conviently level 1 with 0 xp.

 

[Neonchameleon]

While I understand this, fighters have strengths casters don't.

Like what? Remember that the Paladin is a caster.

Sure, a wizard might fly, but nothing stops the fighter from shooting him with a bow or something,

Gotta catch him first. And it's got to be in a combat situation.

This is of course the other problem with the fighter. In the official three pillars of D&D the fighter's name is "fighter" and the design spec is that they are, almost uniquely, good only at one of them and get almost nothing special in either exploration or social events. The reason that fly makes the fighter into such a chump is that the fighter's dominant stat is strength and athletics is the only strength skill. Climbing, jumping, and swimming are the only out of combat skills that they therefore have an advantage at over other classes. And two of those are made entirely redundant by flying.

So your argument that the fighter should shoot down the wizard is literally an argument for friendly fire - that to make their third rate skills relevant they should shoot their team mate down.

And Wall of Stone can be permanent, but why would a fighter want to do it? They have their own things,

That's just it. Outside combat they pretty much don't. The base class provides literally nothing outside the default number of known skills and an extra feat (probably going on Sentinel or Great Weapon Master) at level 6 and 14. And the skill (singular) their lead stat synergises with is redundant. A couple of subclasses, notably the Eldritch Knight and the Echo Knight give out of combat utility.

One reason the fighter should be able to "hulk smash" their way through walls and otherwise go above and beyond right up to cutting the tops off mountains CuChulain style is so that they actually get their own things out of combat.

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...

OK. Let's do some math on this claim.

An average bricklayer can lay about 700 bricks in a day. By this calculator a 10ft by 10ft brick wall takes 690 bricks. So it would be about a day's work for a skilled bricklayer - and require about two tons including the mortar. Something fighters are known to lug around with them.

But wall of stone doesn't create one ten foot by ten foot section of stone. It creates ten. So that's ten days of work and 20 tons of building material.

The fighter isn't doing that a couple of times in a day...

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.

When I am thinking of what a level 20 fighter should be I go to examples like CuChulain who was able to cut the tops off mountains in a single bound. I go to The Incredible Hulk (although in 5e terms he'd be a barbarian). And at lower level

 

[DND_Reborn]

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.

But if both can take it and both want it, it becomes an issue IME. I would prefer classes each just have "their own thing".

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

In that spirit I will agree I think casters (all of them) have to wide a variety of spells that basically make mundane things accomplished by magic. I would rather see a feature like Spider Climb be something rogues (or maybe monks???) can do instead of seeing it as an arcane spell.

IMO, too much magic (i.e. spells) also removes the "mystical feel" of magic.

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

Yep, see my Spider Climb example above. Nice to know we agree on something LOL!

everyone CAN be special as long as they all have niche/role.

Exactly my point! If your super hero martial can accomplish things my caster can, they lose that protection and stop being special. FWIW, I agree it goes both ways. I don't want casters doing things via magic that could be the purview of martials.

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

Well, I didn't say "never", just martials tend to have better ACs IME. YMMV of course.

why would us haveing our options hurt you?

I never said it would hurt me. But if they became the default of the game, I'd be doing the work in the other direction to "mundanize" them.

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.

I agree, the RAW fall short of making PCs be able to do what people can do IRL.

Look at movement. If you had a 18th-level monk human with mobility feat (speed 70), who moved, dashed, and bonus action step of the wind dash, he would move 210 feet in the round. If he did it a second round, he would break the current world record (9.6 ish) with about a 9.4 second 100-meter run.

So, it's possible, but even using a lot of stuff the game has to offer, you are just barely better than IRL.

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 why I stipulated, it depends on what you to mean by "lift", which is why I talked about overhead lifts, not deadlifts.

But, make a feat to mimic Powerful Build and you double the 600-lb. to 1200-lb., exceeding the IRL record deadlift. Actually, the Paragon class I posted upthread would allow a human to do this via the Heroic Stature feature gained at 1st level:

yes we want WOTC to do that...

Hopefully they will. I am certainly not opposed to a "super hero supplement" for people who want it, I don't don't want that extreme to become the default. I agree the default is lackluster for martials and should be upgraded to more "awesomeness", but just not Hulk-smash levels.

 

[HammerMan]

DMG page 36 breaks the game down into four tiers of play

• Tier 1: Levels 1-4 - Local Heroes
• Tier 2: Levels 5-10 - Heroes of the Realm
• Tier 3: Levels 11-16 - Masters of the Realm
• Tier 4: Levels 17-20 - Masters of the World

yeah most level 20 fighters would fit in with 9th level wizards and 11th level warlock/sorcerers as heroes of the realms... andnever hit masters...

 

[DND_Reborn]

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.

Agree completely! I want casters to be magical, but I don't want them to be able to use magic to solve all their problems.

Martials don't have the best ACs.

As I said, IME, YMMV of course.

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.

And yet martials get played just as much IME as casters. There was to be something appealing about them otherwise people wouldn't play them. My favorite classes (in order!) are Rogues, Fighters, and then Wizards.

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.

(bold added)
What permanent? Shapechange has a duration of up to 1 hour--hardly "all day long" unless you are referring to something other than the spell?

And I am not comparing the two, you are.

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.

Which is why I've said, 5E's lack of rules leads to ambiguity and issues when a bit more rules would clarify everything. Don't blame the messenger.

 

[DND_Reborn]

mostly this is "use magic or magic adjacent but not fighter"

Shrug

You said what you wanted to be able to do. I showed you how (in most cases) you could play that role using martial characters with RAW.

 

[HammerMan]

Shrug

You said what you wanted to be able to do. I showed you how (in most cases) you could play that role using martial characters with RAW.

yeah I know reflavor... like I said the best Arthur is paliden/bard/warlock reflavored

 

[Asisreo]

When I am thinking of what a level 20 fighter should be I go to examples like CuChulain who was able to cut the tops off mountains in a single bound. I go to The Incredible Hulk (although in 5e terms he'd be a barbarian). And at lower level

But what good would cutting a mountain or building a wall do for a dungeon crawl?

Sure, there's niche uses but a feature saying you can cut a mountain will still feel useless when you're traversing the underdark.

This is yet another point about the debate: once you give a martial an ability, it can't be taken back.

Wizards can prepare the "mountain breaker" spell for when they're climbing mountains, and replace it with the "Underdark Tunneler" spell for when they're traversing the underdark. And it makes sense because magic, in lore, is a sequence of techniques to manipulate the weave. These are technical abilities that can be remembered or forgotten based on intelligence.

Martials, on the other hand, don't rely on their intelligence. If they have a "mountain breaker" ability, that's due to their muscle. They can't forget how to hit very hard. It's one thing to have the hulk able to crush boulders, but it's another that as he got stronger, he somehow forgot how to do it.

So naturally, these abilities would be the type where you're locked into the decision. If it's a feature embedded in the class, then unless it's so general like "You can break anything," then it can be seen as niche since not all campaigns may feature the needed ability. If it's chosen out of a list, you have to build more carefully than even Known spellcasters, who still have the luxury of forgetting their features. And that's not a fun design for many people, as apparent from the Ranger's Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer features.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Like what? Remember that the Paladin is a caster.

I never said Paladin.

And two of those are made entirely redundant by flying.

Which only lasts up to 10 minutes per casting, while the fighter can climb and jump all day long...

OK. Let's do some math on this claim.

An average bricklayer can lay about 700 bricks in a day. By this calculator a 10ft by 10ft brick wall takes 690 bricks. So it would be about a day's work for a skilled bricklayer - and require about two tons including the mortar. Something fighters are known to lug around with them.

But wall of stone doesn't create one ten foot by ten foot section of stone. It creates ten. So that's ten days of work and 20 tons of building material.

The fighter isn't doing that a couple of times in a day...

Fair enough, I forgot in 5E it was ten sections. I am used to AD&D, when it was one section. My bad.

But the point is a fighter could build a wall. Sure it isn't as quick and "magical", but why does it have to be? As I mentioned in other posts, I would rather see the spell removed or nerfed to casters can't do every mundane thing with magic. That, however, is just a matter of preference.

When I am thinking of what a level 20 fighter should be I go to examples like CuChulain who was able to cut the tops off mountains in a single bound.

(bold added)

Who was a demigod, akin to Hercules really. IMO that is the sort of stuff that belongs in Epic levels, not 1-20. But again, just my opinion.