D&D 5E Being strong and skilled is a magic of its own or, how I learned to stop worrying and love anime fightin' magic

[Haplo781]

Clearly, you are using an attempt at humor to deflect from actually dealing with the point made. Your avoidance is noted.

By the way, while shotokan was more my speed, I have done a bit of judo cross training.

RULES OF NATURE

Your argument is invalidated .

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Yes, but that's...not measure of strength, or even skill. To do it against a similarly skilled and antagonistic opponent, sure, but....the act of executing a throw or trip, is not particularly mythical.

Going for an ankle, and then heaving your 20 foot tall monstrosity opponent around and through its minions, is a whole different thing.

I think maybe you're both arguing more about the semantics of the fluff rather than the actual ability. Getting a huge creature to travel a distance and smash into anything it hits on the way, dealing damage and/or knocking prone definitely sounds like something a legendary warrior hero could do.
It would be the player/setting choice if this is flavoured as misdirection, wristlock, a punch that knocks them back, or literally picking them up by the ankle and swinging them.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

What I would actually be after I think is something like the Bo9S Warblade. They had interesting and tactical abilities and were generally much more fun to play compared to the Fighter of 3.5 even though their damage output was generally less.
This has the added advantage of enabling a Warlord-like class with White Raven maneuvers. - Update this to 5e and add more abilities of use in social and exploration pillars, and I think I'd be happy.

 

[dave2008]

Out of curiosity, why no clerics?

Notice I said PC caster classes. Technically there are clerics, but nobody wanted to play one.

 

[dave2008]

And yet you can flip a guy who weighs 3x as much as you over your shoulder. And you aren't as strong as a rhino.

That is hard to say. Judo is a sport, and you fight in a weight class. So you don't have the opportunity normally. The closest I can get to actually experiencing something similar (my son was a state champion in Judo and competed at nationals) was when my son trained with the coaches. Their were coaches 2-3x his weight. He was definitely never close to flipping them over his shoulder. You would have to be very luck to get those physics to work for you.

 

[dave2008]

Counterpoint:

Fun to watch, but definitely more epic, post lvl 20 stuff in my mind.

 

[dave2008]

Well, see, I'm not asking for fighters to do "magic". I'm asking for them to do "awesome".

I should be able to do things like grapple Orcus and swing him like a baseball bat into his own minions, or hit a guy in the head with my shield so hard that he's stunned until he makes a Con save, or yes, challenge my enemies to "come at me, bro" so compellingly that they have to make a Charisma save or move adjacent and attack me on their next turn.

Why are against awesome = magic? A super strong or fast fighter is supernaturally strong or fast. supernatural = magic. It doesn't have to be spells, or even shouldn't be spells, but you need to explain (IMO) why your can do the things they can do that go beyond the possibilities of the mundane world.

 

[Argyle King]

Since it's been taking over the 1DD playtest thread, I'm taking the liberty of spinning it off so people have a place to discuss it spearately.

For some reason, there's a very vocal contingent of D&D players who think that martials being able to do anything more impressive than a real-world body builder breaks suspension of disbelief. Given that this is a game of heroic high fantasy, I cannot wrap my head around this POV.

We have wizards who can create pocket dimensions, snuff out life with the snap of a finer, and raise armies of undead minions, but the idea that a fighter can let out an intimidating shout that makes enemies cower in fear without knowing a spell is a bridge too far for some.

D&D is a game that wears its pop cultural influences in its sleeve. The monk is based on 70s kung fu movies; wizards are ripped from Jack Vance's Dying Earth; clerics are Peter Cushing's Professor van Helsing.

Yet there's a curious mismatch in terms of which classes draw on which inspirations. Wizards get to be Circe, yet fighters aren't allowed to be Hercules. Warlocks are are Dr. Strange; rogues don't get to be Nightcrawler.

Maybe it's time the martials draw on the same inspiration as the casters.

I'm not opposed to heroes being above what average people can do. However, I generally dislike when PCs are so far removed from the world around them that it no longer resembles anything even remotely plausible (even by fantasy standards).

As for wizards and magic... I kinda agree; my preference is for fantasy in which magic is still very useful but not so good that it's an automatic "I win" button for encounters.

Sure, it breaks reality, so by definition it is great to have, but magic can still be constructed in a way which has boundaries and fits into the fiction. This can be seen in any number of movies and books. I would dare say that there are many stories in which the limitations and costs associated with a great power made for a far more interesting story. Even the exaggerated version of "reality" found in a pro wrestling match -when it is done well- still contains some semblance of being an athletic contest for the purpose of trying to get the audience to buy-in to the fiction.

It's possible to have games featuring magic/The Force/etc; have it be something awe-inspiring; but still find a way to have it at the same table as the guy who just wants to shoot/stab things.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a game which wants to embrace anime wire-fu and world-shaking magic. If that's what an audience wants, they should be able to have it. I can even enjoy it myself from time to time. But, if given a choice, I'll take 13th Warrior; The first 5 seasons of GoT; and Captain America over Bleach; DBZ; and the special effects spectacle of Michael Bay's Transformer movies.

 

[Art Waring]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a game which wants to embrace anime wire-fu and world-shaking magic. If that's what an audience wants, they should be able to have it. I can even enjoy it myself from time to time. But, if given a choice, I'll take 13th Warrior; The first 5 seasons of GoT; and Captain America over Bleach; DBZ; and the special effects spectacle of Michael Bay's Transformer movies.

You are lumping way too many things into the same category here.

Anime is no one single thing. It is an incredibly diverse medium, and is not just wuxia fantasies or giant mecha.

Anime can have a variety of elements. Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Armitage iii, Cyber City OEDO, all of them have cyberpunk elements and are more grounded than marvel films (no superheroes at all).

Films like Tekkonkinkreet have more heart and soul than any western film I have seen. The characters and the world are vibrant and alive. They also don't need superpowers, they use their guts and the city itself as their playground.

Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, Caastle in the Sky, these are incredible adventures experienced primarily by mundane heroes. Howl is a wizard, but he is cursed and his powers come at the cost of permanently becoming a monster.

Stuff like DBZ is completely off the mark, and using it at the set bar of comparison is wrought with misconceptions about anime and its place in entertainment.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Deleted.