D&D General why do we not have an armourless half caster?

[Parmandur]

this seems partly true yes you can use monk ki for spells but it is not even when stretched a spell caster at this point.

That's the thing, it is exacteven with other Half casters.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Give us a concrete example. An archetype is a recurring character type seen in myth, novel, TV, movie, where-ever.

The long-established "Red Mage" archetype across various Final Fantasy games.

Or hey TVTropes:

Anime & Manga / Magic Knight - TV Tropes

Black Clover: Although the Clover Kingdom's military force are called the Magic Knights, most of them fight as regular mages with spells and serve a 'knight' role by defending the kingdom from threats. There are some who fight like actual Magic …

tvtropes.org

The vast majority of them, despite being called "Magic Knights" actually don't wear any significant armour. Very often they don't cast D&D-style spells either. There's dozens of examples there.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The long-established "Red Mage" archetype across various Final Fantasy games.

Or hey TVTropes:

Anime & Manga / Magic Knight - TV Tropes

Black Clover: Although the Clover Kingdom's military force are called the Magic Knights, most of them fight as regular mages with spells and serve a 'knight' role by defending the kingdom from threats. There are some who fight like actual Magic …

tvtropes.org

The vast majority of them, despite being called "Magic Knights" actually don't wear any significant armour. Very often they don't cast D&D-style spells either. There's dozens of examples there.

One thing I noticed about a lot of these that I could think of offhand: they have a cool magic weapon. That’s something the official rules seem resistant to granting. Even Pact if the Blade grants a technically nonmagical weapon, you just receive it via magic.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Another thought: just making mage armor easier to get is pretty close to a fair option for unarmored magical fighters. You really shouldn’t be getting more than a 16 AC with no downsides, since that’s the best AC available through armor without a stealth penalty or maxed out dex. And mage armor with a 16 dex isn’t that big an investment.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One thing I noticed about a lot of these that I could think of offhand: they have a cool magic weapon. That’s something the official rules seem resistant to granting. Even Pact if the Blade Granpa s a technically nonmagical weapon, you just receive it via magic.

Yeah D&D is weird about that, and it's been a discussed and addressed problem since 2nd edition at the latest.

D&D, for some reason, which I think runs against how most groups want it, wants you to go through various magical weapons, and definitely not start with one, which becomes stronger (Pact of the Blade is closest).

But all the way back to the late '80s, you find a lot of people who would rather get one magic weapon that grows with them, and really says something about their character and so on. This is vastly more common in fiction - the number of heroes who go through multiple magic weapons is vanishingly small compared to the number who have a beloved magical weapon (often bequeathed to them as a child or teen).

And the first major-major attempt to "fix" D&D, Earthdawn (1993), marketed as a major feature the way you bonded with a magical item and it became stronger as you wove more of your spirit into it as you leveled up (sorry for run-on sentence). It's really weird that D&D doesn't "get" this. That is an actual "miss" of the kind you were discussing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Another thought: just making mage armor easier to get is pretty close to a fair option for unarmored magical fighters. You really shouldn’t be getting more than a 16 AC with no downsides, since that’s the best AC available through armor without a stealth penalty or maxed out dex. And mage armor with a 16 dex isn’t that big an investment.

yeah the balance issue is weird... the warlock can get a bunch of spells at will (mage armor, speak with animals, speak with dead) if they pick a class feature that they get a bunch (5 I think) of over the levels... so why are these BOTH balanced as at will AND as useing a 1/day slot?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

yeah the balance issue is weird... the warlock can get a bunch of spells at will (mage armor, speak with animals, speak with dead) if they pick a class feature that they get a bunch (5 I think) of over the levels... so why are these BOTH balanced as at will AND as useing a 1/day slot?

D&D editions other than 4E are just full of weird balancing hang-ups from the designers (4E had math and design issues, but fewer weird hang-ups - though not zero!). And the designers aren't even consistent with themselves about most things.

Realistically, being able to cast a first-level spell at will is not a big deal, balance-wise. There are some second and maybe even third level spells that might apply to as well, esp. anything that's not concentration but lasts a long-ish time. But sometimes 5E realizes this (as with Warlocks), and other times it's acting like it's a huge balance issue.

The only thing 5E is utterly consistent about balance-wise, is as I mentioned previously, wildly overvaluing race-derived innate weapons, even though they've gone to massive and ridiculous lengths to make them mechanically near-worthless. Just so odd and the designers have never explained it AFAIK (@Parmandur correct me if I'm wrong lol). The only explanation I can see is that WotC's own designers constantly run games where PCs have all their gear removed, which seems... unlikely...

 

[DEFCON 1]

To be honest... I think to more likely get what you want, people are asking for the wrong thing.

If the archetype people want is this unarmored, magical, swinging a big weapon type of character... you might be better off asking for the campaign setting that would warrant having this type of class in it. The same way they didn't make an artificer until they released Eberron, and probably won't make a Psion until they release Dark Sun or a Warlord until they release Nentir Vale... this unarmored archetype wouldn't get added just to the base generic game, they'd wait for the right story of the right setting to possibly insert it-- an anime-type setting for which this agile, unarmored weapon-fighting aesthetic could shine.

Get them to create a setting like that, and the archetype would probably have a better chance to follow.

 

[jmartkdr2]

To be honest... I think to more likely get what you want, people are asking for the wrong thing.

If the archetype people want is this unarmored, magical, swinging a big weapon type of character... you might be better off asking for the campaign setting that would warrant having this type of class in it. The same way they didn't make an artificer until they released Eberron, and probably won't make a Psion until they release Dark Sun or a Warlord until they release Nentir Vale... this unarmored archetype wouldn't get added just to the base generic game, they'd wait for the right story of the right setting to possibly insert it-- an anime-type setting for which this agile, unarmored weapon-fighting aesthetic could shine.

Get them to create a setting like that, and the archetype would probably have a better chance to follow.

That’s a fair point - I’d love to play in the Granblue Fantasy setting, and it needs very little in the way of new rules to be totally doable (new races but they’re just remixes, a couple new subclasses, jrpg summon spells, airship rules)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You couldn't though, because he wears little/no armour (a single shoulder pad and gloves), and doesn't use magic to replace armour, nor indeed does he cast spells independently of materia at all (and IIRC, all characters can use materia), he just has really dramatic attacks including the dreaded "Limit Break". And if you wear little/no armour in D&D, you have a crap AC. Combine that with not using a shield, and you're going to get, as the kids used to say "pwned in the face".

Ginormous sword

500 gp

2d8 slashing

30 lbs

Two-Handed, Finesse

Sorted. High dex, good AC without wearing full plate. Or just rule that a futuristic Shoulder pad gives as much protection as medieval full plate. It's not like armour matters much in 5e anyway. In our current party the wizard has the highest AC.

Materia = material component.