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

[Fifth Element]

The point I was responding to was the argument that because it's fantasy then anything goes.

The point I was making is that this is an incredibly uncharitable reading of the post. Has anyone actually argued that anything goes because it's fantasy? Or are they actually saying that some things beyond the reach of actual humans go because it's fantasy? Given the context, the latter is the appropriate reading.

 

[Fifth Element]

It does address the issue of fighters not getting to do wizard-like things, however.

This is circular. If you define certain things to be only possible by magic, they become "wizard-like things." Even if that thing is something that non-magical characters in fantasy are able to do. There's nothing inherently magical about being able to jump further than people in the real world can jump. But if you define that to only be possible in the game world using magic, then you have decided to make it a "wizard-like thing." The question being addressed is: why are some things defined to be wizard-like in the first place, when non-wizards can do naughty word like that in the stories?

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.

There's no "problem." It's just a useless suggestion to someone talking about house rules in their own game.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

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

Well, the difference would appear to be that martials generally get a fighting style. Lets keep things similar and assume Duelling, which is a +2 damage bonus on each attack for the martial. Base damage would be d8+4, or cantrip which will probably be equivalent. Extra attack will be 2d8+8 =17 for the Bladedancer, and 2d8+12=21 for the fighter. So bladedancer does 200% damage over the base due to extra attack, and fighter does 250% damage over base.
Wizards getting something generally regarded as a martial capability, at 80% of the power that fighters do would probably be fine if fighters could be 80% as good at wizard stuff as wizards are.
Do you honestly think that is the case?

Again, that's not the narrative some people want. They don't want to be a magician, a half God, or a Saiyan. They just want to be Joe Mercenary, tough as nails and too old for this excrement.

So those people probably won't pick the ability that lets their character hold their cloak, angle it just right to catch the wind, and get some air time (or however the player might choose to flavour it).
There should be enough abilities to pick from that people can play the sort of character they want. I mean how many wizard class features are there throughout all of 5e by now? Couple of hundred?

 

[Gammadoodler]

Because fantasy does not necessarily mean literally anything goes. In fact, most of the time it doesn't. If it did, you would have nothing to stabilize yourself in the story, nothing to jump into the fantasy from. That's why most fantasy assumes more or less real world physics for everything except where noted. Its why many characters in fantasy stories continue to be human. Look at Star Wars. Hundreds of crazy species, but most of the characters, even in the new stuff, are human. And even fictional humans need to abide by limitations resembling those of real life humans, to maintain that baseline.

My apologies.. I should clarify. It's not that I fail to see that such limiters can be useful.

It's that I fail to see why they are required, why they are assumed.

As to what fantasy means, by literal definition, it is the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable. It's damn near as "anything goes" as you can get. Grounding a setting with baseline physics in order to avoid adjudication of every single physical interaction characters have is a convenience, not a necessity of the genre. Allowing characters to occasionally break rules that are only really there for that convenience should not trigger the vigorous pearl clutching it seems to inspire. The truth is..there is no spoon.

As to the rules fictional humans need to abide by, there are many many examples of fictional humans who do not abide by the real world human baseline, with varying levels of explanation, from none to quite thorough biological discussion. D&D can easily operate at either end of that explanatory gradient, but honestly, it mostly functions better when you don't think about it that much.

Besides that, in D&D humans only represent one of many PC options. In many, maybe even most cases, one of a player's very very first choices is to depart from the human baseline. So we wind up with these really weird, kind of dissonant conclusions.

"So I'm a 400 year old dude who doesn't sleep, who maybe has a bloodline connected to the fey, but jumping over 30 feet horizontally is preposterous?" Uhhh..what.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So those people probably won't pick the ability that lets their character hold their cloak, angle it just right to catch the wind, and get some air time (or however the player might choose to flavour it).

Yes. Yes I would.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My apologies.. I should clarify. It's not that I fail to see that such limiters can be useful.

It's that I fail to see why they are required, why they are assumed.

As to what fantasy means, by literal definition, it is the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable. It's damn near as "anything goes" as you can get. Grounding a setting with baseline physics in order to avoid adjudication of every single physical interaction characters have is a convenience, not a necessity of the genre. Allowing characters to occasionally break rules that are only really there for that convenience should not trigger the vigorous pearl clutching it seems to inspire. The truth is..there is no spoon.

As to the rules fictional humans need to abide by, there are many many examples of fictional humans who do not abide by the real world human baseline, with varying levels of explanation, from none to quite thorough biological discussion. D&D can easily operate at either end of that explanatory gradient, but honestly, it mostly functions better when you don't think about it that much.

Besides that, in D&D humans only represent one of many PC options. In many, maybe even most cases, one of a player's very very first choices is to depart from the human baseline. So we wind up with these really weird, kind of dissonant conclusions.

"So I'm a 400 year old dude who doesn't sleep, who maybe has a bloodline connected to the fey, but jumping over 30 feet horizontally is preposterous?" Uhhh..what.

Everyone has a different line, beyond which they can no longer accept what they're seeing. Your line is much farther than mine, it seems, but there are at least as many folks on my side as there are on yours. Thus, it is unlikely that we will see that line shift significantly in an official WotC product. Good thing there are 3pp and homebrew options for all tastes. The one suggested by the OP is one such.

 

[Baron Opal II]

We want non-supernatural fighters that are also interesting to play. There are people who vehemently don't want us to have them because they want all the interesting play to be tied to magic and the supernatural. That's the problem.

Would "preternatural" be acceptable? Not magical, per se, but at the line or slightly beyond the physical?

So... you can hit a creature resistant to non-magical weapons hard enough to bypass that, but maybe discarding the weapon at the end of the fight? Or "eagle-eyed" so you ignore range penalties to a semi-arbitrary range maximum?

I'm wondering where you draw the line.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Would "preternatural" be acceptable? Not magical, per se, but at the line or slightly beyond the physical?

So... you can hit a creature resistant to non-magical weapons hard enough to bypass that, but maybe discarding the weapon at the end of the fight? Or "eagle-eyed" so you ignore range penalties to a semi-arbitrary range maximum?

I'm wondering where you draw the line.

Sure, there's some wiggle room. But nobody's throwing a cow with super strength.

I actually think resistance to nonmagical weapons should be replaced with immunity anyway, like in the old days. Or at least bring back DR.

 

[James Gasik]

Until WotC comes out and says magic weapons are expected, that leaves non-casters in a bit of a bind though. While resistance is obnoxious as heck, at least you can still do something as a weapon user, while the casters can fire off cantrips willy nilly (unless the creature also has elemental resistance).

 

[ECMO3]

Until WotC comes out and says magic weapons are expected, that leaves non-casters in a bit of a bind though. While resistance is obnoxious as heck, at least you can still do something as a weapon user, while the casters can fire off cantrips willy nilly (unless the creature also has elemental resistance).

The flip side to this arguement is single-class casters rarely have enough cantrips to get around immunity or resistance effectively all the time, while a magic weapon, if they find one, does full damage to just about everything.