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

[HammerMan]

They're really more NPCs IMO.

And if you gave martials those origins, they cease to be "mundane humans" and become something else. Now, their super hero powers are fueled by their origins, and they are magical/ mystical.

except we let PCs play Gandalf Rastlin Merlin Harry Dresden and Dr strange...

 

[HammerMan]

And the hulk really isn't calculating the precise force needed to break a Boulder. Other feats, sure, but boulders are fragile enough on his scale that he doesn't need to perform calculations. They're like clumps of sand to him. It probably takes more intelligence to hold a boulder and not crush it.

there is a cartoon where all the avengers get hulk like powers and hulk has to teach them how to live with it... one problem is breaking the handle off all the doors, he tells them "Pretend you are holding an egg, the door nob is an egg...everything is an egg" and it reminds me of my favorite superman cartoon speech "world of cardboard"

 

[HammerMan]

2e PHB - count the number with divine heritage (*or claimed in the case of Alexander). Hero in Greek was literally defender but also basically meant demigod.

"The fighter is a warrior, an expert in weapons and, if he is clever, tactics and strategy.There are many famous fighters from legend: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad. History is crowded with great generals and warriors: El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius."

My friend quotes this all the time... she is so pissed at 3e and 5e for what they 'did to her fighters'

 

[DND_Reborn]

except we let PCs play Gandalf Rastlin Merlin Harry Dresden and Dr strange...

Sure, but look at what they are: Wizard, Wizard, Wizard, ??? no clue, Wizard...

 

[Garthanos]

Sure, but look at what they are: Wizard, Wizard, Wizard, ??? no clue, Wizard...

All more powerful than the goddess of magic Circe...

except maybe Gandalf (who most pointedly indicate what he does is not a match for his stature)

 

[Asisreo]

right... so we wave it as "Heroic fantasy duh

Yeah but people are alot more finicky about that one, huh?

Did you catch how I discussed there could be differing styles of flavoring of what that expenditure of exertion means just like hit points have different reasons? Are you straining, are you getting lucky, is your focus waning.

But that's tied to the ability check system. And if you're saying you can do these things with ability checks, we're kinda just looping back to what's already implemented.

sure and perhaps that is the kind of a flavor difference (I was showing how one could stretch the more mortal flavor). But the fact is as someone else pointed out gradual reveal of divine heritage (aka the same one Herakles and Cuh Chulainne and a large portion of the inspirations for the fighter class in the 2e PHB had is a fine backstory for

I don't know why people consider mythic heroes like Heracles and Sigfried are examples of fighters. They've only been examples in specific circumstances. Nowhere does a fighter promise that you'll be anything like a mythic hero.

It's not a failure of performing the fantasy, it's a mix-match of perception between you, the player, and the designers.

Fighters are dungeon-crawling bodyguards. That's essentially their fantasy. Whether you agree that's what it should be isn't relevant because the game is designed with a specific audience in mind.

 

[DND_Reborn]

All more powerful than the goddess of magic Circe...

Really? How so?

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah but people are alot more finicky about that one, huh?

But that's tied to the ability check system. And if you're saying you can do these things with ability checks, we're kinda just looping back to what's already implemented.

nope I am talking expenditures that quit needing binding to player luck hit points are not random they are set resource

I don't know why people consider mythic heroes like Heracles and Sigfried are examples of fighters. They've only been examples in specific circumstances. Nowhere does a fighter promise that you'll be anything like a mythic hero.

except your casters are more powerful than mythic mages.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Sure, but a different issue. IME games that end by middle levels is because people have other concepts they want to play, not because they are really dissatisfied with their current PCs.

Or because the DM wants a new campaign. But if the real fall-off for the fighter and rogue are post level 11 and most games don't reach level 11 then they don't see it. The fighter and rogue are good for the whole run of over 90% of games even if they aren't for 40% of the levels published.

And I think most people agree that the core concept of the fighter and the rogue are good. They just don't scale.

Why does it have to be fast?

If the fighter wants to build the wall then either:

1. They are asking the rest of the party to sit on their thumbs for ten days while they build this wall
2. They are sitting out of ten days worth of adventure while they build the wall.

The first is a dick move for the rest of the party. The second is no fun at all because you are missing an entire adventure.

Therefore the fighter is very unlikely to build a wall.

What is fast? Is the 10 minutes of concentration on the spell fast? The point is the wizard can make the wall by magic, the fighter by building it. Both create a wall, eventually.

Yes, ten minutes is fast. It's less than the time needed for a short rest. It's an amount of time that the rest of the party can meaningfully make good use of.

And it doesn't take the wizard 10 minutes to build the wall. It takes them 1 action. The ten minutes is just waiting for the wall to become permanent. They can e.g. keep travelling in it.

The wizard didn't create the wall by turning themself into an NPC for the entire day and sitting out an entire adventure. And they didn't need a literal ton of building materials to do it.

Good question! If you read through that section of the DMG, even the book says at tier 4 the PCs have "superheroic capabilities."

In looking at the classes, the only classes that really seem to completely lack those capabilities at tier 4 is the Fighter and Ranger. With subclass selection, maybe they do, but in the core classes not really.

Do you mean the fighter and the ranger or the fighter and the rogue? I'd also make a case for the barbarian never getting beyond "Hollywood action hero" to reach superheroic. Sure one can take punishment like John McClain and hit like a character played by The Rock - but they don't go beyond that and into outright superheroic. People don't complain as much because they start as larger than life and more or less just stay there.

 

[Garthanos]

Really? How so?

Circe literally had to poison someone to polymorph them now if you have to use subterfuge to get your spell to go off sometime that would be a limit. There are very few legendary/mythic casters that come anything close to a D&D one (I know one legendary/mythic source that gets close AND modern examples are far more likely and they acknowledge ahem the muggles are not the heroic characters but maybe sidekicks and ones to be defended). This super hero class casters was first noted with Gandalf years ago he was obviously a low level caster in D&D terms, I think it might have been level 6 and that was giving him lightning and fireball.