D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

[Mort]

It's a bit unsolvable with the current niches. The "niche" of the high level spellcaster is pretty darn broad. So you are always going to step on those classes niche unless you limit spellcasters first.

I agree. I was just responding to a poster who said what I proposed was too samey with what casters could do.

But if your niche is "do anything" it's kind of hard to go outside of it!

So yes, either limit casters. Or screw niche protection (which isn't even that "do anything" is NOT a niche) and just let fighters do some fun stuff too!

If spellcasting was only able to do combat type elemental magic, imagine the other niches that could be filled by martial classes --- the traveler, the face, the information gathering, the infiltrator, etc. Instead all those can be handled by magic.

Yep, or just give the martials some tools to do that stuff and not everyone would rely on spells.

Now as many magic defenders point out, you can't always do all those things on the same day. So I'm fine with the martial overlapping with this niches. It just means the spellcaster doesn't need to cover it much right and can do other things?

I dislike the argument "it's balanced because casters can't do everything all the time." They don't need to do everything- they just need to do what the adventure asks them to do. And it's usually a limited scope of things.

I remember having to explore a tower in back in 3e days and our rogue player happened to be absent that day. The DM thought the tower would present a challenge because of the locked doors and the lack of rogue. 1st locked door, I used a knock scroll. 2nd locked door, I used an empty spell slot to cast knock. 3rd locked door that we, by this point was essentially the end game - I used passwall. Locked door challenges - what locked door challenges? Now 5e doesn't have the easy access to scrolls etc. that 3e did - but a wizard is still a pretty good swiss army knife.

The point is, I reject the idea that fighters shouldn't mimic what a caster can do because a caster can do just about anything - so the argument is meaningless. Now it would be BETTER if they get their own niche and ways to solve challenges (such as followers etc.) because then it's just theirs.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I dislike that kind of narrative trickery because it basically homogenizes all the PC capacities. If the fighter uses a zipline, the rogue uses a grappling arrow, the wizard uses an arcane spell, and the cleric uses a divine portal to all move 400 ft in one round, you've basically given them all the same ability with different names.

It definitely can feel a bit homogenizing and the issue with D&D is that spellcasting almost always covers everything.

No cost short and long range teleporting is not really all that common a fantasy trope. And it's definitely not common to combine it with mind controling, summoning, shape changing, blasting magic, protection, etc, etc.

It's actually pretty common for the martials to provide that movement stuff. The martials get the magic user safely to the location.

 

[Minigiant]

Just went back an look at the totally underpowered and bound to reality 3e fighter and the feats in its PHB i & ii and man does that class make the 5e fighter look a bit weak. I mean imagine if the 3e fighter could move between attacks, does not lose attacks by moving, and successive attacks don't get a penalty,and its class skills wasn't so bad,. it would be pretty awesome.

Now I wasn't a fan of skill trees and heavy requirements of feats. However having feats that were appropriate for levels higher than one would have been great for the 5e fighter. The expansion of the post level 8 fighter's capabilities besides raw numbers is pretty weak.

 

[Mort]

Just went back an look at the totally underpowered and bound to reality 3e fighter and the feats in its PHB i & ii and man does that class make the 5e fighter look a bit weak. I mean imagine if the 3e fighter could move between attacks, does not lose attacks by moving, and successive attacks don't get a penalty,and its class skills wasn't so bad,. it would be pretty awesome.

Now I wasn't a fan of skill trees and heavy requirements of feats. However having feats that were appropriate for levels higher than one would have been great for the 5e fighter. The expansion of the post level 8 fighter's capabilities besides raw numbers is pretty weak.

By PHB II the designers FINALLY threw in some level appropriate feats instead of the laughably underpowered ones they had been offering to that point.

Of course they followed that up (just a few months later) with the book of 9 swords which made the PHB II stuff look weak and quant by comparison. But still. it was progress.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Just went back an look at the totally underpowered and bound to reality 3e fighter and the feats in its PHB i & ii and man does that class make the 5e fighter look a bit weak.

I can't remember that far back -- what did the 3e fighter get besides things like whirwind attack, spring attack, ranged multi attack, etc.?

 

[Minigiant]

I can't remember that far back -- what did the 3e fighter get besides things like whirwind attack, spring attack, ranged multi attack, etc.?

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Stuff like

• Combat Acrobat
  • Fighter "ignore" some difficult terrain and knockdowns
• Combat Exp- WW Attack
  • Fighter could attack everyone around them
• Combat Reflexes-
  • Fighter makes as many Attacks of Opportunity as Dex mod
• CR, Vexing Flanker, Adaptable Flank
  • Fighter counts as 3 people when flanking and grants higher flanking bonus
• Defensive Sweep-
  • Fighter gets bonus attack it adjacent opponent doesn't move
• Dodge Mobility Spring Attack Bounding Assasult Rapid Blitz
  • Fighter can make 1/2/3 attacks while moving and not provoke
• Two Weapon Fighting feat Tree.
  • Fighter/Ranger could make as many off hand attacks as main hand
• Power Attack Brutal attack
  • Fghter's attacks sicken
• Leap to the Heavens-
  • Fighter standing jumps "at no penalty"
• Robliar's Gambit
  • Fighter leaves self open but all incoming attacks provoke
• Slasher Fury
  • Fighter gets bonus attack with slashing weapons
• Weapon Superiority
  • Fighter's second attack as good as first, laughs at disarm, and call swap an attack roll with a 10 once per round.

Not all amazing until you factor in 5e's rule changes.

 

[Remathilis]

You're essentially talking about niche protection - a very D&D thing.

Ok. But in 2 of the 3 pillars fighters get 0 abilities outside those available to everyone else. What would you (assuming you wanted to) give them in those pillars - without sacrificing niche protection?

If I had an answer to this, I'd be selling you the PDF of it!

You can beef up the fighter's skill abilities (though being careful not to drown out the rogue's niche in the process) and whittle down the caster's some to open up more breathing area beyond casting "Solve Problem" at every issue, but in reality there isn't a whole lot you can do to fix the problem unless you are willing to wholesale redesign the fundamentals of D&D in such of way that 4e looks tame in its changes. You're never going to achieve magic/martial parallelity under the D&D concept of magic.

 

[Mort]

If I had an answer to this, I'd be selling you the PDF of it!

You can beef up the fighter's skill abilities (though being careful not to drown out the rogue's niche in the process) and whittle down the caster's some to open up more breathing area beyond casting "Solve Problem" at every issue, but in reality there isn't a whole lot you can do to fix the problem unless you are willing to wholesale redesign the fundamentals of D&D in such of way that 4e looks tame in its changes. You're never going to achieve magic/martial parallelity under the D&D concept of magic.

Never is a REALLY big term!

And giving the fighter a few more schticks outside of combat may well be enough if you ALSO include advise on making sure to really tax the casters on their limited resources. It doesn't have to be perfect parity or even close parity - it just has to be more than it currently is.

Otherwise, all that happens is DMs are forced to do A LOT of heavy lifting to ensure the gap doesn't feel as wide as it otherwise could be. And heck maybe some DMG advice on THAT may also help new players.

 

[Remathilis]

It definitely can feel a bit homogenizing and the issue with D&D is that spellcasting almost always covers everything.

Yup. Tale as old as time. Not sure how you fix that short of a massive re-invention of the magic system. But like most of the big-picture answers, I don't know how you do that and keep the feel of D&D that it's had for 50 years.

I'm not against buffing the fighter. I just don't think you get him to match the wizard in terms of "shenanigans" unless you a.) literally give him magical abilities and/or b.) Allow him metagame currency to match magic. Honestly, probably both. But history is littered with fantasy hearbreakers that did just that and they're still not D&D. I just don't know if D&D has the heart to make such a radical change, considering how its last big "shake up the game" revision was received.

 

[Remathilis]

Never is a REALLY big term!

And giving the fighter a few more schticks outside of combat may well be enough if you ALSO include advise on making sure to really tax the casters on their limited resources. It doesn't have to be perfect parity or even close parity - it just has to be more than it currently is.

Otherwise, all that happens is DMs are forced to do A LOT of heavy lifting to ensure the gap doesn't feel as wide as it otherwise could be. And heck maybe some DMG advice on THAT may also help new players.

Never insofar as you're never going to 1:1 match, but yes, you can narrow the gap far more than it is currently.