I agree for the most part. I do think 12+ level martials aren't on par with 12+ level casters because WotC kept them too mundane. If you think of the continuum of "mundane" - "heroic" - "super heroic", they kept in mostly mundane, while I would like to have seen heroic, and a lot of people here want to see super heroic.
90% of games don't go past level 10
I was referring to the True Polymorph spell which has the line "If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation lasts until it is dispelled." And dispelling a 9th level spell isn't easy.
Yes I am - because the game is because levels are a thing. The level 20 fighter is pretty mundane and isn't really a master of anything.
that should be recognized as nonsense too. It was why Herakles diverting the river was an act of engineering.
or is not raw strength but rather an extraordinary application of precision force part of an act of civil engineering and focus where you find the vulnerable fractures in the surface in mere moments that would have taken months to do followed by strength that also does exceed the ken of mortal men.
Never ever since day one did it make sense that casters forgot how to do these horribly elaborate things. Fortunately that too can be reflavored as something more sane.
No, I did. The paladin is a caster.
And how many times does the fighter actually need to climb in a day?
It doesn't have to be magical. It has to be fast. This is the problem with the Assassin abilities. In order for the fighter needs to either ask the rest of the party to do nothing or to sit out the best part of an entire adventure while they do something mundane. Neither of which is good for group cohesion.
IMO so does permanently turning yourself into a dragon, casting Wish, and most of the other actually good 9th level spells. Level 17-20 is the domain of epic abilities.
5e officially came with tiers. As I quoted earlier:
You clearly don't dungeon crawl the way I do at high level. Building a wall - trap people in. Cutting a mountain = making your own doors. And cutting and smashing your way through a maze is a perfectly good way of getting through.
It's only useless in a flat, featureless plane. Which the Underdark isn't.
In short wizards can do anything and fighters can do nothing.
This is starkly risible. Fighters need brains. It's not all about muscle, it's about knowing where to hit and knowing your foes. And about understanding the fight and outthinking your opponent at high speed. The flanderisation of fighters into big dumb brutes doesn't do the game any good.
But that's not an ability exclusive to Heracles. Anyone can think of diverting a river. It took his muscle to perform that task, though. Same way a wizard doesn't have the spell "Divert River" but has the spell "Mold Earth." (Okay, they do have control water but that's besides the point).
But this isn't true. Two fighters with the same ability score spread except one having -1 Int and the other having +5 int are equally the same in combat situations. And in their abilities that don't involve memory, logic, or thought.
every hero has an origin... Merlin was half demon... Gandalf was a god/angel, we let the casters play at that level but not the martial
And this is a flaw in D&D.
Once again this is a flaw in D&D. Pointing out that Int is a dump stat for 5e fighters due to the way the rules are written doesn't mean that Int should be a dump stat in D&D - or that it is a dump stat for top flight fighters either in the real world or mythology.
