Indeed. My disbelief suspensors are somewhat fragile and this is well beyond their meagre capacity. It already bugged me in the Loki TV show how they seemed to have forgotten his Asgardian strength. I have an annoying habit of wanting even my fantasy entertainment to make some vague sense. I'm willing and capable of suspending my disbelief for fantastic things existing, but those should then still be depicted somewhat coherently. And I feel in RPG it is especially important if you want to be immersed in the world and make decisions from in-character perspective.
sometimes he uses those... but at least half (if not 3/4) of the time he just is doing it by being smart and able to make himself legally untouchable... heck (as I said in 90;s was my start in comics and RPGs) for years he was a respected member of the community on the world stage and superman couldn't do anything to him
Look at bards/wizards/paladins, then tell me that adding more fighter or monk capability would be an arms race. Boosting the bottom tiers isnt powercreep.
if a new class came out that was martial (call it warblade, warlord, swordsage, mangaman, whatever) that had abilities scaled form 1-9 that worked 1/3 as well as spells but also had the option to make multi attack instead of useing them (basiclly replaceing attack cantrips) and use all weapons and armor people would scream power creep... even if PHB cleric and PHB+1 Bladesinger was still more powerful
I don;'t know if it was this thread or the other one but I talked about the game I had the most fun in 4e was a super tactical (a little house ruled) warlord. We would as a group start encounters with a big encounter power or a situational useful at will... round 2 one of the 4 of us would use a daily power that rocked... allowing for someone else to use there daily in the next and someone else a daily in the one after that... we basicly made sure every fight was 1 of us getting a big showing...
some big fights we would (normally in round 5) open a second daily if we needed to. Often (I would say 7 out of 10 ecombat encounters) we would use all our encounter abilities. We all did cool stuff but we also all shared the spotlight. During skill challanges we did similar things makeing sure if one of us did something big in one we would let another do one in the next.
We tried early in 5e to replecate this and could not. We found often that short of luck (a fighter dropping 2 crits out of 6 attacks over 2 rounds) that the fighter could NOT give a big showing like a wizard cleric or druid. We also found (like 1,2,and3e) that outside of combat spells were just TOO much overrighting skills and other non combat abilities.
yup I have played in games with little (I don't remember ever a no) combat. I have played and run games with 0 none nada social interactions. I have played in a game with little to no exploration.
However, it is actually a group which decides to focus on a single pillar that eventually needs everyone effective in that pillar. If another group dedicates attention to all pillars, it can afford to have players more invested in a pillar and less in another.
and if you run a game that is 1/3 1/3 1/3 I am sure most classes work okaish... that is what 2e was based on (yeah in a fight the fighter and wizard rule, but in exploration it is the ranger rogue and wizard, and in social it is the wizard and who ever talks the best out of game)
That said, don't think that pillars are a science. WotC designers discussed about a model and decided to settle on 3 pillars but the game is MORE than those.
Perhaps you should actually give an actual example of what sort of design you want to see? I am not trying to misinterpret you, I'm trying to interpret your position the best I can, but to me it seems incoherent.
Well, I mean, I did do that, but I can give it again. Different system, so it obviously would need translation, but the fundamental concept is sound. Specifically, the Dungeon World Fighter class and its Bend Bars, Lift Gates move.
As a quick preface, so mechanical differences are explained in advance: In DW, which IIRC you are at least somewhat familiar with, players roll 2d6+MOD for almost everything (stat mods are always three capital letters; stat scores are the full text of the stat's name). This is exploited to give ranges of success: rolling 10+ is a full success/hit (so you get all or almost all of what you want), 6- is a miss/fail (so you don't get what you want and something bad happens), and 7-9 is a partial success (which can mean "get what you want + complication," "get part of what you want," or "get a weakened or lesser version of what you want," among other things.) Many moves have a structure where you have a list of roughly 3-5 options, but how many you get from that list depends on how well you roll, e.g. if there are four options, a 7-9 may give you two picks, while a 10+ might give three (and later improvements might allow you to get all four on 12+, or choose to enhance one of those benefits, or the like.)
With that out of the way, here's the text for Bend Bars, Lift Gates:
When you use pure strength to destroy an inanimate obstacle, roll+Str. ✴ On a 10+, choose 3. ✴ On a 7-9 choose 2.
It doesn’t take a very long time
Nothing of value is damaged
It doesn’t make an inordinate amount of noise
You can fix the thing again without a lot of effort
This is a default move of the Fighter playbook. No one else gets this move, as playbook rules (in the base game, anyway) are mostly unique to each class. The main exceptions are Cleric and Wizard, since their "Cast a Spell" move is essentially identical apart from class-specific flourishes about the costs of mediocre or bad rolls. Other than that specific move, however, each class gets its own unique moves.
Now. This is clearly an exploration-focused move, albeit one that might have very niche uses in combat. Things like "nothing of value is damaged" and "it doesn't make an inordinate amount of noise" are really only useful if you're trying to avoid detection or not sacrifice useful resources, which is rarely (not never, but rarely) relevant once combat has already begun. Further, even with a 10+, you only get to choose 3--even on a "full" success, you can't get everything you might want. (I have instituted, as part of my "Legendary" beyond-max-level rules, a new additional success category, "superlative success," for when you roll 13+, in other words, beyond the limits of ordinary mortals. This may grant all options from a list, or enhance the benefits of a move in some other way.)
I consider this an excellent example of a clear, useful, Fighter-specific ability that offers a defined area of competence. Its utility applies to some (but not all) stealthy situations, something Fighters are otherwise not necessarily good at, and it encourages Fighters to think about the environment around them, not just the threats that might need to be killinated. By design, it doesn't give you everything, but it may be very useful.
This is far from the only utility-focused move Fighters can take, it's just the only one they automatically start with. Their other starting moves make them able to use heavy armor without penalty, and give them a Signature Weapon which they can choose the details of. (It may be worth noting, here, that DW explicitly recommends against having more than one player play the same playbook, because it can lead to the two characters feeling too samey.) Giving some brief summaries of their other utility move options (which are purely elective; it is quite possible to play a Fighter that never takes a single additional utility move): Heirloom (roll+CHA; consult the spirits in your Signature Weapon for guidance, maybe being asked questions in return; 10+, get a detailed answer, 7-9, get a vague impression), Interrogator (when you Parley, a generic move, using threats of violence as leverage, roll+STR instead of +CHA), and debatably Through Death's Eyes (when you go into battle, roll+WIS: 10+, name someone who will live AND someone who will die; 7-9, name someone who will live OR someone who will die; 6-, you see your own death and take a penalty. Please pick NPCs, not player characters, and "the GM will make sure your vision comes true if it's even remotely possible.")
All of these are unique to the Fighter playbook. In theory, a character can pick them up if they take a multiclass move (most classes get one or two multiclass move opportunities, some narrower than others), but apart from that, only Fighters get these things. Barbarians, by contrast, get a completely different set of moves with utility benefits, and very little in the way of starting utility. (For example, there's a move that just straight-up declares you've travelled pretty much everywhere, so any time you enter a region or city etc., you can ask the DM about the traditions, rituals, etc. of that place and "they'll tell you what you need to know.")
Again: this is from a different system, and so it cannot JUST be ported over wholesale, that's not how game design works. But it provides a clear example of something that can be Fighter-unique and open-ended in its use, without being "good at everything." Bend Bars, Lift Gates is useless for forging a document, deceiving a guard, persuading a noble/royal, or surviving in winter. In a heavier system like D&D, I would hope that the equivalent of Bend Bars, Lift Gates would be one option among a small handful (e.g., perhaps you could pick your choice of two from BB,LG, a "survive the trenches" kind of thing, and a "I may not be good with words, but my buddy is, you should really listen to them" kind of thing). Again, not enough to be "good at everything." Not even enough to cover all areas of a relatively narrow thing like "exploring a ruin"; BB,LG offers no direct utility for, say, climbing around a wide spike-pit by clinging to the dilapidated walls. But it's enough to give a clear, defined area of competence that can be leveraged, and which players are encouraged to consider creatively and exploit.
No. Batman only has a chance because plot coupon. In a real fight Batman dies before he even knows he's in a fight. Superman is A) that fast, B) that strong, and C) can kill him from miles away if he really wanted to.
define real fight... do you mean a fight that YOU control superman instead of him acting like superman? cause his defualt is to stand still (no speed) assumeing he can tank anything that comes his way (go look up his first fight with doomsday where he stands get hit and says something kinda witty then gets kicked in teh gut and goes flying). so this character that speed blitz may have supermans powers... but it isn't the character.
Good luck. The designers themselves don't want that world. They haven't wanted it for over 20 years. I would argue they haven't wanted it since at least 2nd edition.
One option is, of course, to sustain the call for these features despite the vocal pro-caster minority and (likely subconscious) pro-caster bias among the designers. This strategy has thus far failed to produce any headway at all, except during 4e, and that was because someone actively trying to reduce the power of spellcasters was at the helm and constantly fighting a rearguard action against persistent backslide. The only major new limit on caster power in the past 40 years (as opposed to the steady removal of such limits) has been in the form of Concentration, and even that isn't as significant as it could (or, IMO, should) be.
I would even argue if we had 2e style wizards (and spells with drawbacks ala 2e) mixed with a modfied concentration (but only slightly modified) with 4e fighter/rogue/warlord classes (names don't matter... you can even make the base fighter the slayer and the phb fighter be optional) with EVERYONE front loading HP but overall having less of them, you could make a GREAT 6e.
(my idea for less hp has even been repeated on here, but make all HD 1 less then 5e, so d4,d6,d8 as the go to with barbarians being the outlier and getting to keep the d12... no one getting d10s) give everyone 3hd at first level then get +1hd at odd levels only, and no Con bonus at all to HPs. at even levels you get a set amount +1 +2 or +3. so a 20th level fighter would have 12d8+30 hp (42-126 but if you max 1st level that is 63-126 with average 95) and monster ALSO haveing less HP... keep HD instead of Healing Surges... but you DO add con mod to HD spent. Make 3/4 of healing spells work off HD (so healing word is let them spend a HD+1d4, but cure wounds is heal AS IF they spent a HD, healing potions however give the option of get 1d4 OR spend a HD your choice)
The other option is to accept that we will never put this genie back in the bottle. Powerful casters are here to stay, and the designers simply do not want to take that away. We can then either shrug and say "well, guess it just sucks to not be a full caster," or we can work to bring up the power level of non-casters yet further and to extend (to what limited extent we can) the limitations on caster power and flexibility, especially in the domain of setting the expectations of when and how often the party takes a break.
There's many reasons I didn't adopt 5e when it came out, this is but one.
All three of 3e 4e and 5e are highly overpowered compared to the type of game I want to both play and DM. That said, I still feel it's worth pointing out the risks of additional power creep within an editi
When people keep straight-up telling me that what I'm asking for isn't what I'm asking for, and that they can oh-so-clearly see that what I'm really asking for is something I've explicitly rejected multiple times, there is no further discussion to be had. When people can avoid strawmanning me and stop putting words in my mouth literally in response to posts where I reject those words, perhaps it will be worth participating again. Until then, I value my sanity too much for that.
"I want to be able to enjoy my meatball grinder"
"But some people want fish"
"Okay but can I just get my meatball grinder?"
"You just don't want anyone to have fish...you want us all eating meatball grinders"
"I mean that WOULD technicly fullfuil my request, but it isn;'t close to what I said"
"STOP FORCEING EVERYONE TO HAVE MEATBALL GRINDERS111!!!
