D&D 5E A simple houserule for martial/caster balance.

[Fifth Element]

I don't doubt that. But there is only 1 correct use of the term.

I reject linguistic prescriptivism entirely. To quote a wise man, all words are made up. And beyond that, words change in meaning over time. Drawing a stark line at an arbitrary point is not helpful when people are having conversations. The poster used the term in a particular way, which many people use, making its meaning clear. Since the meaning was clear, stepping in with "ackshually..." would not have helped the discussion.

Some might say that right now, you're on a crusade to promote the correct use of this term. It would be ridiculous of me to reject that claim on the basis that you are not engaging in military action under a religious banner. And yet, at one time that was the "correct" use of that term.

People can use blue to refer to the color red but that doesn't make that the correct use of the word.

If people used red to mean what we mean when we say blue, and vice-versa, those usages would absolutely be appropriate, since a word's meaning is determined by its usage and all words are made up. Here, since one of the common usages of the term in question was used, there are no grounds to say it's incorrect. That's one way that people use the term. Simple fact.

Words can be used incorrectly. Do you dispute this?

If you mean that people can use words that do not convey what they're trying to say, absolutely. If you use a term in a completely novel way, and give no indication of its meaning, that could be called incorrect because it fails at communicating your meaning, though I would probably use a different terms that doesn't carry prescriptivist baggage with it.

However, since in this case the term was used in a common way, and the meaning was clear based on context, there are no grounds to say the usage of the term was incorrect.

 

[FrogReaver]

It just comes down to balance issues, like this very thread. People see the disparity between martials and casters, because they aren't blind. There are two solutions. Try to nerf casters, which the system really isn't mean to do (there are issues inherent to the system that casters are apparently designed to solve- there's a sidebar in Xanathar's that discusses this point when it comes to resistance to non-magical b/p/s damage), or to do work on the back end to make sure your caster light/no caster party doesn't encounter these, or have other ways to deal with them.

Or to take the limiters off the martials and allow them to have "supernatural" abilities of their own. There is a bias on the part of the game designers- they look at a subclass and say "ok well, they are magic, so they can have any kind of cool ability", then look at another and say "oh this guy can't have magic. better give him...uh, I don't know, advantage on an ability check or something".

I understand the desire to have a narrative of the "ordinary man in an extraordinary situation" but even 4e ran into problems here. Any power source other than Martial could, for example, get a power to teleport. And the Ranger actually got such a power because they had a slice of the Primal power source.

So there was this entire design space that the majority of the other classes could have, that was locked off from the Martial classes because "that's too magical". By contrast, there was nothing unique to Martials that other power sources couldn't have.

Very good points!

You see this continue in 5e- Bards and even fugging WIZARDS can get extra attack!

But are either the bard or wizard as good with extra attack as a well built fighter or barbarian? I think that's a no. Which is why that argument isn't super persuasive to me.

So for the health of the game, the narrative should change, because otherwise, in order to have the desired narrative, you have to spend a lot of time and energy undoing what the developers have done to the game.

IMO, my proposed nerf seems to fix most of the disparity. I've yet to see a proposed fix that succeeds at making the fighter supernatural enough while keeping fighter fans happy with the class. I don't think such a fix exists.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Very good points!



But are either the bard or wizard as good with extra attack as a well built fighter or barbarian? I think that's a no. Which is why that argument isn't super persuasive to me.


IMO, my proposed nerf seems to fix most of the disparity. I've yet to see a proposed fix that succeeds at making the fighter supernatural enough while keeping fighter fans happy with the class. I don't think such a fix exists.

You can always make a new mystic warrior class, and leave the fighter as-is.

 

[Fifth Element]

But are either the bard or wizard as good with extra attack as a well built fighter or barbarian? I think that's a no. Which is why that argument isn't super persuasive to me.

Indeed, equating a wizard's extra "attack" with a fighter's isn't reasonable.

 

[FrogReaver]

You can always make a new mystic warrior class, and leave the fighter as-is.

We could... but IMO that would be a terrible solution?

 

[Fifth Element]

You can always make a new mystic warrior class, and leave the fighter as-is.

If the group perceives that the issue is that fighters are terrible compared to casters, this does not address the issue. If the point of contention is "why does a character have to be magical in order to have a certain level of competence in the game", then responding "well just make a new, explicitly-magical type of fighter" does not address the issue.

 

[FrogReaver]

I reject linguistic prescriptivism entirely. To quote a wise man, all words are made up. And beyond that, words change in meaning over time. Drawing a stark line at an arbitrary point is not helpful when people are having conversations. The poster used the term in a particular way, which many people use, making its meaning clear. Since the meaning was clear, stepping in with "ackshually..." would not have helped the discussion.

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why someone would care about the meanings of words? There's practical reasons to do so. One is the same reason we end up with technical jargon. Imagine if everyone used technically jargon differently (Note: in many ways 'reductio ad absurdum' is technical jargon for logic). Another is the reason most words have their meaning expanded via idiom and analogy and not by outright inversion as in this case of 'reductio ad abusrdum' potentially meaning logical fallacy vs logical argument.

And while I agree words don't always need champions, there's times one certain word usages should be championed. There's only one simple way to refer to the logical argument of reductio ad absurdum and confounding that term with an outright inversion of it's meaning isn't helpful to anyone. It started as someones misconception over what reductio ad absurdum actually meant and was amplified via the internet.

This is different than a word expanding in meaning due to popular idiom and analogy. You mention the term crusade below and that's precisely how it's meaning was expanded. There's other words today that have undergone and are undergoing the same process and you don't hear me being prescriptive about them.

Some might say that right now, you're on a crusade to promote the correct use of this term. It would be ridiculous of me to reject that claim on the basis that you are not engaging in military action under a religious banner. And yet, at one time that was the "correct" use of that term.

Yes and it never started meaning 'not a crusade'.

If people used red to mean what we mean when we say blue, and vice-versa, those usages would absolutely be appropriate, since a word's meaning is determined by its usage and all words are made up. Here, since one of the common usages of the term in question was used, there are no grounds to say it's incorrect. That's one way that people use the term. Simple fact.

And yet today, people using red and blue in such a way would be doing so incorrectly. That's no different than using reductio ad absurdum incorrectly today.

If you mean that people can use words that do not convey what they're trying to say, absolutely. If you use a term in a completely novel way, and give no indication of its meaning, that could be called incorrect because it fails at communicating your meaning, though I would probably use a different terms that doesn't carry prescriptivist baggage with it.

However, since in this case the term was used in a common way, and the meaning was clear based on context, there are no grounds to say the usage of the term was incorrect.

I don't think it's common, perhaps not rare either. But that usage began via misapplication and misunderstanding. Someone used the word reductio ad absurdum incorrectly and others unknowingly picked up on that incorrect meaning. It just so happens that now the meanings are polar opposites. One is a valid logical argument and the other an invalid logical argument. Surely even an avowed anti-perscriptionist as yourself sees the issue there?

 

[Micah Sweet]

We could... but IMO that would be a terrible solution?

How so? Serious question.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If the group perceives that the issue is that fighters are terrible compared to casters, this does not address the issue. If the point of contention is "why does a character have to be magical in order to have a certain level of competence in the game", then responding "well just make a new, explicitly-magical type of fighter" does not address the issue.

It does address the issue of fighters not getting to do wizard-like things, however. You have your new mythic warrior many have requested, and the people who like the fighter as is still have him. I don't see a problem here.

 

[FrogReaver]

How so? Serious question.

I think the below quote explained it well.

If the group perceives that the issue is that fighters are terrible compared to casters, this does not address the issue. If the point of contention is "why does a character have to be magical in order to have a certain level of competence in the game", then responding "well just make a new, explicitly-magical type of fighter" does not address the issue.