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

[Medic]

That is entirely fair.
So: You personally have presented your opinion that because you're not a fan of something, others should be denied it even when its existence will not impinge upon yours. On a public forum.
Should we start discussing and challenging that now, or would you care to say anything more in your defence?

I reiterate that the post was made in jest, but I don't see why not. My original position was not that we should prohibit people from playing a certain way, but that sharing an idea is inevitably going to attract people that want to talk about what they like and dislike about it. Though, I think I'll stop here at risk of derailing the thread further.

See, this is the thing:

The only 'cartoon' things I see here are:

The guy using the D&D equivalent of a magic weapon -- which means he's doing the thing people keep saying the fighter should do and he's still getting flack for it.

The guy throwing a small, heavy thing

And the guy jumping through a hoop like happens every night at 6:30 at Cirque de Sol Le.

People being capable of having doo timing, when they're actually doing because choreography.

I get that this is a matter of taste, but if the bar is so low that being at this fairly mundane level they're' Daffy Duck (canonical wizard, btw. He has business cards), no wonder 'swing stick or swing sharpened stick' are the only things fighters are allowed to do.

And it still begs the question: why is it okay to be a fun, interesting cartoon if you wear a point hat and hand jive, but not when you're punching people?

You're correct, nothing in that clip breaks the verisimilitude of mundanity. I think it might be the presentation that leaves the other user with the impression that it's "kooky," not the action itself.

 

[Haplo781]

That gives the probability of at least one of A or B happening, right?

Was he looking for that, or for the probability that both A and B did happen?

... You may be correct. I am also not a math person.

 

[Haplo781]

Then the question becomes.

How does a human with no magical enhancements and no magical spells stand up to an archfiend?

Standing still and taking flaming swords to the face and icycles to the gut isn't normal human either.

Martials are badass normals.

Which is to say, they totally have superpowers but everyone pretends they don't.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

In my settings there are ambient sources of magic either in the air or related to someone's life force, as someone trains or learns techniques for cultivating this, the limits of our world's physical capability can be broken:

In a way, this is kind of default-- if primal magic is magic, then arguably every living thing is magic and can hone its own life force to be stronger. That's why we have high level foes, who can be natural creatures despite that necessarily putting them on the level of explicitly magical beings.

You could interpret it as ki or whatever too, if we accept the existence of the monk, then rationally there's no real reason why any other martial artist couldn't learn those techniques to reach a similar level of martial ability-- a fighter who learns who to manipulate their ki is literally a better fighter. It dovetails well with the concept of Barbarian Rage as well, there's something inside of you that it draws on and stokes to make you stronger.

Also to be clear, the 14 year old girl from Sacramento can take Orcus provided she trains really hard, somehow without aging. But then again, Wizards often learn 8 of their 9 spell levels in like a year in these games if the party isn't deliberately pacing with long stretches of downtime or time skips to pad it out, whereas its meant to be a lifetime of study and dedication in the lore of the game-- and you can't even compensate for that by putting that behind your character in their history because you still start out without that ability.

Incidentally, speaking of 14ish year old girls from California, Amphibia is very DND, and Sasha Waybright has no patience for not getting to be cool:

 

[Haplo781]

In my settings there are ambient sources of magic either in the air or related to someone's life force, as someone trains or learns techniques for cultivating this, the limits of our world's physical capability can be broken:

In a way, this is kind of default-- if primal magic is magic, then arguably every living thing is magic and can hone its own life force to be stronger. That's why we have high level foes, who can be natural creatures despite that necessarily putting them on the level of explicitly magical beings.

You could interpret it as ki or whatever too, if we accept the existence of the monk, then rationally there's no real reason why any other martial artist couldn't learn those techniques to reach a similar level of martial ability-- a fighter who learns who to manipulate their ki is literally a better fighter. It dovetails well with the concept of Barbarian Rage as well, there's something inside of you that it draws on and stokes to make you stronger.

Also to be clear, the 14 year old girl from Sacramento can take Orcus provided she trains really hard, somehow without aging. But then again, Wizards often learn 8 of their 9 spell levels in like a year in these games if the party isn't deliberately pacing with long stretches of downtime or time skips to pad it out, whereas its meant to be a lifetime of study and dedication in the lore of the game-- and you can't even compensate for that by putting that behind your character in their history because you still start out without that ability.

Incidentally, speaking of 14ish year old girls from California, Amphibia is very DND, and Sasha Waybright has no patience for not getting to be cool:

I'm kinda hoping D&D gets big in Japan, because it means more demand for anime-esque/wuxia style action.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That gives the probability of at least one of A or B happening, right?

Was he looking for that, or for the probability that both A and B did happen?

... You may be correct. I am also not a math person.

I know there is math people here... but just "I need to roll a 12+ or loose a turn and keep repeating" is bad enoungh... even if we don't know the exact 5 we know how often that can lock someone out of a fight

 

[Cadence]

... You may be correct. I am also not a math person.

Was checking. You sounded sure and it made me think I was missing something.

For two discrete events:

P(at least one)
= 1 - P(neither)
= 1 - (P(not first)*P(not second given not first))

P(both)=P(1st)P(2nd given 1st)

 

[Cadence]

It feels like it comes down to what fiction folks.have in their head and everyone agreeing.

Having Conan advance from young thief to pirate/warrior king feels like a.different fiction than having him advance from young thief to MCU Thor.

I wonder if the difficulty is how magic is portrayed in the differing motivational fiction.

In most of Glen Cook's the Black Company series, the company's wizards Goblin and One-Eye are good, but the actual experienced martials are important too and they complement each other. In his Dread Empire, the experienced martials and Gish seem vaguely balanced, but the strong wizards that fight along side the warriors are off the chart. In neither of them would an off the chart martial feel right. (The BBG in each are a super powered NPC wizardy types).

In any case, in D&D it feels like there are two different games fighting each other - one with the "classical martials" where the wizards might need to be limited if things are to be kept on an even keel, and one with "super casters" where the martials might need to be opened up more to balance it.

I wonder if the best (not going to happen) solution for hitting the biggest chunk of motivating fictions is to have two sets of core books. One presenting things capping out at around level 8 or 10 or whatnot, and describing a world like that, and another presenting things capping out around 20 and presenting a world that fits that.

 

[Minigiant]

Martials are badass normals.

Which is to say, they totally have superpowers but everyone pretends they don't.

Exactly.

Batman and Green Arrow get computer brains and super reflexes when they go to Justice League. Because they have to dogde where Superman and Wonder Woman can eat lasers to the chest.

A high level martial really should have multiple reactions per turn.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It feels like it comes down to what fiction folks.have in their head and everyone agreeing.

Having Conan advance from young thief to pirate/warrior king feels like a.different fiction than having him advance from young thief to MCU Thor.

that is the thing... can you imagine telling someone that not only can they not play gilgamesh or Beowulf or link* because someone else doesn't want conan to advance to thor...

*link may be a bad example, I always think especially with magic instruments he is more a bard but I have had people say he is a warrior... I don't know