D&D 5E Casters vs Martials: Part 2 - The Mundane Limit

[Mordhau]

And see, this is the exact problem. This right here. This is the true, fundamental flaw that will never be overcome unless and until some group changes their opinions.

Because what you've just said is: "Martial powers should, always, be subject to more limitations than magical ones, under all circumstances." In other words, martial powers are simply, on the whole, less useful and less powerful than magical ones. Period. As long as that statement is held true, it is impossible to find balance between the two. The assumptions produce a contradiction, because it is not possible to balance "thing that must be subject to extra limitations" with "thing that cannot be subject to any limitations," and never will be.

No what I said is narrative based powers normally have to make sense in the fiction. Otherwise they aren't narrative based powers, they're just powers.

This is a problem because magic has a get out of jail clause here because it gets to do anything because it's magic.

No there really isn't anyway to square this circle at the end of the day.

Either:

• You don't care about the fiction
• You make Martials just a different kind of magic
• You put much more limitations on magic.

Also we either:

• Never solve this issue
• Are willing to accept that some D&D players are going to have a monstrous sook.
• Play other games.

 

[Maxperson]

Why doesn't "you missed these 2" (or whatever) signify exactly that? You missed their Will defense (equivalently, they passed their Wisdom save)--whatever it was you did, it didn't work on them. That's the whole point of failing to pull off the maneuver.

I guess I just don't see how. If you miss (4e)/they pass their save (5e), whatever you attempted didn't work. That's literally the in-the-rules representation of "this creature wasn't affected by whatever you attempted."

The save attempt doesn't do enough to represent what I'm talking about. This sort of taunting would have a very, very low success rate. In the single low single digits. The success rate of saving throws is far higher and these abilities can be used multiple times a day.

...CaGI doesn't force the enemy to attack either! The only thing it does is movement (and letting the Fighter make an attack.)

A distinction without a difference. Being forced to attack against your will, being forced to move against your will, and being forced to sing Kumbaya against your will are all the same. Mind control.

Actually, it DOES force actions, or at least a lack of them. Frightened creatures cannot (willingly) move closer to the source of their fear. By making the target frightened, you literally make them incapable of performing certain actions, no matter how much they might want to, e.g. they can't go past you to get to a target they'd rather hit because that involves approaching you.

First, I already said that such abilities should be supernatural if they actually force these effects. Second, removing a choice(being able to go towards the source) is far different than forcing one single choice.

My apologies. I appear to have conflated it the adult amethyst dragon. I swear I checked it twice to be sure, but that evidently didn't work!

No worries. I thought it odd so I went to see if it had been corrected in my book and I didn't see it at all. Looking in my Fizban's I see adult and ancient amethyst dragons being immune to frightened. Young and wyrmlings as well.

I mean, it can annoy you all day, it's still a thing that happens all the time at real tables. That it bugs you is not a reason for why we should presume that creatures always behave as creatures on Earth do. Isn't that an implication of old-school-style random monster tables? That you'll just be attacked, even if there's no real reason?

It's also not a reason to presume that they are different than creatures of earth. All it really means is that you have a poor DM. And no, the random monster tables of old were just encounters. Back in the day we talked to them(assuming someone got really lucky and rolled the monster's language) and sometimes avoided combat.

 

[Maxperson]

Okay. You're in a combat with Sir Dast Ardley, a crooked but talented knight wielding a halberd, and his buddy Eve Ull the Pyromancer. She's winding up for a big fireball (because of course she is, she's a pyromancer), and he's standing between you and her; she's just within range if you make a straight line toward her, passing Sir Ardley. You approach to try to deal with her, but he readied his action to attack you if you approached. He hits you, and decides to spend a die on Menacing Attack. You fail your saving throw, which means you cannot advance toward Eve (because doing so would cause you to get closer to Sir Ardley.)

You say, "No, I wouldn't be afraid of him, the fact that I know I have to stop Eve's spell would be more than sufficient to overcome any fear of his halberd."

What's the DM supposed to do with that? You're basically asking them to completely neuter a standard BM maneuver because you declare it wouldn't frighten your character.

If it's a supernatural effect, then it should work anyway. If it's not and is just a mundane skill, well we know that RAI is for social skills not to work on PCs if the player decides that they don't. That said, with Menacing attack the RAW would be for there to be a save and possible failure as specific beats general, but I dislike it as a non-supernatural ability.

 

[Maxperson]

Or until another rule that causes a specific reaction that is neither mind-control or physicial gets printed.... Like being Frightened.


False dichotomy.

It isn't a False Dichotomy. Show me any effect that forces my PC to behave a certain way against his will, and whether it's labelled mind control or not, it will be mind control. Because if it doesn't control my PC's mind, then I can choose to do something else.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Narratively they aren't being forced to attack 'against their will'. They very much want to attack. Because that man just did the Jet Li 'disdainful nose wipe' at them and by gawd, this will not stand.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a problem because magic has a get out of jail clause here because it gets to do anything because it's magic.

Well...yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. That clause is the problem. Either you remove the clause, or remove its favoritism toward magic over non-magic. Unfortunately, in general, the same vocal minority complains no matter which horn of this dilemma you choose, as you probably already know. If you remove the clause (so magic is no longer capable of doing anything you can imagine but is instead restricted to a narrower, balance-able subset) they howl that you've destroyed it, that "magic is no longer magical," etc. If you remove the favoritism magic receives over non-magic, they howl that you've let Fighters shoot lightning bolts out of their hindquarters or created "Fightan Magic."

You make Martials just a different kind of magic

See, this is (part of) why I made my poll thread a couple weeks ago. Does "magic" mean "spells"? Does "magic" mean "anything supernatural whatsoever"?

If the former, then you're simply wrong, since it isn't making martial characters into spellcasters, it's just giving martial characters the ability to say some things that happen, to briefly take the director's chair for the action-movie that is the game, to overextend a metaphor--spells are not the only form of declarative ability. If the latter, you're right, but (as I argued to Maxperson and others earlier), everyone is already "a different kind of magic" anyway, because of the wibbly-wobbly healthy-wealthy Ball of Stuff that is hit points, and saving throws (e.g. "dodging" an exploding fireball makes no sense, you can't just physically move so that the heat glides around you except in action-movie logic.)

The only way to get what you're saying and have it be meaningful is to say that all declarative abilities are necessarily "magic," and not just...y'know, getting to describe a cool action scene because it would be a cool action scene.

We invent fictional worlds for the pleasure of it; the world is a convenience to us, a tool shaped by what we request of it. Why, then, do we request that a popular and beloved subset of the game be forced to live exclusively by the physics of our world (or, rather, a frankly laughably narrow-minded construct substituted for the physics of our world), and another subset be empowered to reject any and all limitations of the physics of our world...and then ask that these two things be equally worthy of playing?

The save attempt doesn't do enough to represent what I'm talking about. This sort of taunting would have a very, very low success rate. In the single low single digits. The success rate of saving throws is far higher and these abilities can be used multiple times a day.

Why should it have a very low success rate? I thought the whole point of the Battle Master subclass was being exceptionally good at reading opponents and having preternaturally good instincts about who/what they are and how they tick (Know Your Enemy). Why can't their battlefield prowess also extend into the field of cold-reading targets to get a pretty high likelihood of pushing their berserk buttons or their deep-seated fears?

A distinction without a difference. Being forced to attack against your will, being forced to move against your will, and being forced to sing Kumbaya against your will are all the same. Mind control.

Uh....okay. So, you do realize that now that thing you called a strawman isn't, because of this statement? Because now you are saying that any time you force someone to move against their will, it's mind control.

Plus? Again, that's what failing a Wisdom saving throw means. (Or, in 4e, successfully hitting its Will defense.) It specifically means that the target does want to, even if only for a moment. You overcame their willpower, tricked or goaded them into a dumb move or feigned weakness that they foolishly tried to exploit. Getting the saving throw was their chance to realize the trick or taunt or feint for what it was. They failed.

Do you have similar problems with, say, failing to know a historical fact because your character fails a History check? "No, my character definitely would know this." Or similar problems with being deceived by something you as a player know must be an actor's disguse, but which your character fails to see through by botching the Investigation check? Aren't those things exactly the same--forcing you to be ignorant, forcing you to be deceived, "against your will"?

First, I already said that such abilities should be supernatural if they actually force these effects. Second, removing a choice(being able to go towards the source) is far different than forcing one single choice.

Seems like another distinction without a difference to me. What choices you're permitted to make have been controlled. Sure, in one case it's narrowed more than the other, but either way, you're taking choices away from the target. And if these things should be supernatural, doesn't that mean 5e is now exactly as bad as 4e was on this score? Worse, even, since in 4e at least it was a tiny subset (IIRC two or three powers) of the vast array of options Fighters might take, as opposed to something literally anyone can get for the price of a single feat (or, with Tasha's, a fighting style)?

It's also not a reason to presume that they are different than creatures of earth. All it really means is that you have a poor DM. And no, the random monster tables of old were just encounters. Back in the day we talked to them(assuming someone got really lucky and rolled the monster's language) and sometimes avoided combat.

On its own, no. But when you have a consistent trend of people doing it--demonstrated by both official modules and everyday DMing--it seems to me that, whether or not it is everyone's cup of tea, it is an accepted reading of the text that creatures in D&D worlds are not required to conform to the psychology that naturalistic creatures of Earth possess. When at least as many people run things "unrealistically" as "realistically," it seems a bit hard to argue that behavioral psychology must always work exactly like it does in the real world, and not (as is the case with many things) up to a coarse abstraction thereof, with occasional hiccups and foibles forgiven because they are part of enabling a gaming experience.

If it's a supernatural effect, then it should work anyway. If it's not and is just a mundane skill, well we know that RAI is for social skills not to work on PCs if the player decides that they don't.

So you can decide if your character would be fooled by a mundane disguise, such as one made via the Actor feat? Or decide if you know whether a character is lying to you, Insight rolls be damned?

Because if it doesn't control my PC's mind, then I can choose to do something else.

Berserker Barbarian, level 10 feature, Intimidating Presence. Berserkers are well-known for being one of the only other subclass to be truly non-magical, since (as the Barbarian descriptive text notes) some Barbarians simply "draw from a roiling reservoir of anger at a world full of pain." Intimidating presence forces a target to make a Wisdom save, and failure makes the target frightened. The target does not get a second saving throw, but the Barbarian can choose to extend the effect as long as the target remains in line of sight and no more than 60' away--without granting additional saves. Nothing in the text indicates that it is magical in nature--meaning, if you assert it is, you must prove it, not simply call it "mind control" because it could make you do something you don't want to do. The rules can tell you what you have to do, even if you'd rather not. That's why they're called "rules."

Narratively they aren't being forced to attack 'against their will'. They very much want to attack. Because that man just did the Jet Li 'disdainful nose wipe' at them and by gawd, this will not stand.

Or it could be a feint--feigning weakness or distraction or inability, which enemies have every reason to try to exploit (even animals; animals are quite good at capitalizing on brief moments of weakness, it's how most ambush predators feed themselves). Those that you miss with CaGI see the feint for what it is, and wisely stay away; those you hit believe it's a golden opportunity and attempt to exploit it, just as they would exploit an opportunity attack if you trigger it. Or it could be a false turncoat offer, or flashing a bag of coins at greedy mercs, or any other form of temptation that might work on a target.

You make your attempt, and the attack rolls (=saving throws) determine whether your gambit works or not, whatever that gambit may be. If the DM feels it is a stretch for a target, they're explicitly empowered by the rules to give situational modifiers (though the respectful thing to do is to tell your player that that's the case), and if the gambit is truly completely unbelievable or goofy, then the DM should candidly just say that, ideally before the player has irrevocably committed to the action. "This guy's unflappable--you know in your bones you won't be able to goad him into approaching you, at least not while he's feeling in control of the situation." And exactly the same thing applies (or should apply) to magical powers; sometimes, even a bit of magic just isn't the right fit to accomplish some task as the situation currently stands. (Hence why you saw both the "they made Fighters into Wizards" canard and "they made magic unmagical" WRT 4e.)

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

But it still forces them to resist as if magic, where words can't do that. Not on any sort of reliable basis forced saves give anyway.

Cant' they? That depends on the power level you intent to give to your setting. What DC would you set for a Persuasion check to turn an army sent to arrest the heroes to his side, led by someone who swore to bring the heroes back in an iron cage, and make them join the heroes own army to march against the king who sent them? [Real story, Napoleon writing to Ney at Lons-le-Saunier, March 14th, 1815]? What if the DM is leaning into heroic skills and allowing words to do even more than in reality?

Show me any effect that forces my PC to behave a certain way against his will, and whether it's labelled mind control or not, it will be mind control. Because if it doesn't control my PC's mind, then I can choose to do something else.

PC powers (and skill checks) are supposed to be used on NPCs, not other PCs.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Indeed. Having a power that's varied in its description would be better. "You can attract opponents to you, however you want [with a few examples] would suffice. There is also the possibility to use the fact that time and attacks are an abstraction and not a single sword swing. Having the fighter jump forward doing a series of attacks at lightning speed to force other people to move then jumping back in the midst of the fray would fit (and not rely on jedi-mind-tricking opponents).

Could be anything, even lunging forward and pulling an opponent. Feigning weakness in a way that a predator would go in for a kill. Even tapping a pattern on the floor that will induce an ooze to surge forward.
Didn't 4e specifically have something about the descriptive text on abilities was flavour only, and could be reflavoured to be whatever fits with your character and the setting?

TBH, I think the scaling offensive cantrips were an error. Caster players don't want to resort to 1d10 crossbow? OK! Have a 1d3 ranged touch attack, pathfinder/3.5e way, and let it be done. You say that Misty Stepping over the pit doesn't matter "on most days". It however seriously limited, in former editions, the ability of the caster to contribute to a subsequent fight... and this balancing, though functional, was problematic, and led to the 5 minutes workday. I guess that scaling offensive cantrips were thought as an answer to the "hey fellow players, I can't contribute anymore, let's call it a day unless you want the next fight to be 3 characters and a deadweight against the BBEG instead of 4 characters...", as the wizard could still be fire-bolting at enemies and generally do a significant contribution through damage. 5e nerfed the utility while introducing something that I guess removed a strong balancing factor that was present in former editions.

I don't have an issue with casters having an at-will attack that scales. Outside of Eldritch/Agonising Blast (which have their own issues), scaling cantrip perform a useful function in allowing a caster to contribute without having to burn spell slots. This (along with concentration) helps to even out resource usage rather than a caster feeling like they have to burn all their spell slots rapidly and then force a Long Rest.
The issue is that the typical adventuring day is much shorter than the one the classes were balanced around, and that martials don't have anything like an equivalent for spells in terms of variety, achieving stuff and contributing the the group.

 

[Maxperson]

Narratively they aren't being forced to attack 'against their will'. They very much want to attack. Because that man just did the Jet Li 'disdainful nose wipe' at them and by gawd, this will not stand.

No. I decide what my PC wants to do. Prior to the use of that power he didn't want to attack. If after the nose wipe he suddenly does, then it mind controlled me into wanting to, because a disdainful nose wipe can't otherwise make me want to attack.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Because what you've just said is: "Martial powers should, always, be subject to more limitations than magical ones, under all circumstances." In other words, martial powers are simply, on the whole, less useful and less powerful than magical ones. Period. As long as that statement is held true, it is impossible to find balance between the two. The assumptions produce a contradiction, because it is not possible to balance "thing that must be subject to extra limitations" with "thing that cannot be subject to any limitations," and never will be.

No what I said is narrative based powers normally have to make sense in the fiction. Otherwise they aren't narrative based powers, they're just powers.

This is a problem because magic has a get out of jail clause here because it gets to do anything because it's magic.

Most of the this thread is just a rehash of all the same back and forth, but it has set off a light bulb for me on one new thing:

Not only do some mundane martial advocates want limitations on the fiction --- which is fine, that is the premise. How do we create this sort of somewhat better than real life action hero. (of course I and many others would like this action hero as only 1 choice of martial along side those martials that grow to mythic hero status since that is what spellcasters do and more choice is good!)

BUT ALSO, some want to restrict the game mechanics that can be used to model this action hero at the same time!

Will saves can't resprent this or that, martial abilities have to always stick to the more explicit action economy, you have to narrowly define the fiction that the martial is taking instead of just leaving is open to fit the fictional circumstances, etc.

Even if sticking to the action hero, people are having trouble getting these types of "scenes" into the mechanics because they are not using the whole tool box. If you are going to stick to action hero, don't make the class jump through a bunch of mechancial hoops just to do this action hero stuff (which by definition is never going to be as powerful as the mythic spellcasting anyway).

I've said it before but D&D is TEAM adventuring game (that is why it gets compared to comic book supers a lot IMO).

By definition, you can't really have Black Widow and Dr. Strange having equal impact and spotlight without plot contrivance. In a rpg this can be done by metacurrency, or by broader effect first abiltiies that give some of this narrative control. Maybe there are other ways, but trying to make a bunch of discrete little abilties that are bound by the D&D action ecnomy doesn't seem like a good way to do it. (the discrete action economy stuff can be there for the at-will abilities)