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

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

But that would mean the Wizard (who we've been told does a bad job of matching casters in the inspirational literature anyway) is the problem...

Can that possibly be right!?!?!

We all sort of know this, but the starting point seems to be "the Wizard is sacred and can't be reigned in anymore so what can we do given that this superhero class exists and always will"? I'm not that's entirely true given we did get concentration and some nerfing. But it does seem pretty entrenched.

I always thought it would be interesting if the Wizard could do medium damage and ONE other thing -- movement, charm/dominate, divination, etc.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm reading that as either "Because Hawkeye and Cap are already than Sgt. Rock, we might as well go all the way to Hulk and Thor." or "Stop using the word mundane to describe what you want."

I'm guessing neither of those was your point. Help!

Oh sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. Ok, let's assume the current Fighter is Sgt. Rock.

If we want a, say, appropriately epic Fighter and a mundane Fighter to coexist, how do we do that, exactly? If we see spellcasters are actual superheroes, and we want to create a "Captain America Fighter", how does the mundane Fighter fit in the same world?

See the last time we had a regular Fighter and an appropriately superheroic Fighter was in 3.5 with the Warblade. Who simply did just about anything a Fighter could do and then some.

Only a very specific and optimized Fighter could compete with a Warblade, who had the ability to shrug off conditions, ignore the hardness of objects and damage resistance, leap high into the air, gain sensory abilities like scent, and grant allies bonus actions (among other things).

I just don't see how we can realistically have both as equivalent options.

 

[Cadence]

It's a reason but not a good reason. If the mundane Fighter is expected to co-exist with the Wizard as of now, what difference does it make that the mundane is outclassed by both the mythic martial and the Wizard?

If you want to maintain the martial / full caster gap, just ban the mythic martial from your game. Having it as an optional Class opens up new frontiers for those who want it.

Races and Classes in the PHB are "optional" ... except that they seem to end up becoming part of the default assumptions because WotC loves kitchen sink worlds and because players and DMs tend to view the core books differently than the supplements.

If all one wants is new frontiers and opportunity for those who want the mythic martial, then a Mythic supplement would make them optional, right?

Or are the opt-in nature of supplements vs. the opt-out nature of core huge differences.

 

[James Gasik]

It's a reason but not a good reason. If the mundane Fighter is expected to co-exist with the Wizard as of now, what difference does it make that the mundane is outclassed by both the mythic martial and the Wizard?

If you want to maintain the martial / full caster gap, just ban the mythic martial from your game. Having it as an optional Class opens up new frontiers for those who want it.

I don't see this as a viable goal- does anyone really think WotC is going to spend time printing both classes, just in case players want one or the other?

I wish we could go back to the 4e paradigm with 1-10 being Sgt. Rock, 11-20 being Captain America, and 21-30 being Thor.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I wish we could go back to the 4e paradigm with 1-10 being Sgt. Rock, 11-20 being Captain America, and 21-30 being Thor.

Yep, I would be all for this.

Casters would be Spell Levels 1-3 (levels 1-10), Spell Levels 4-6 (levels 11-20), and Spell Levels 7-9 (levels 21-30).

Half-Casters would be SL 1-2, 3-4, and 5 (maybe 6?).

 

[NotAYakk]

Lately I've become convinced that the root of the LFQW problem lies with the central mechanic of D&D levels: that a person can become infinitely more powerful just by practicing. This works just fine for casters, since the basic idea is someone who gains immense power through knowledge. A character knowing a thing implies a time when they didn't know it yet, so it's easy to picture a wizard at Level Elminster or whatever and work backwards to imagine his earlier, lower-level days.

Most other powerful fantasy figures don't get their power in the same way. Hercules didn't learn to be the son of Zeus; Nightcrawler didn't learn to be a mutant. Achilles gets dipped in the river Styx and Bruce Banner gets caught in a gamma bomb, but it happens all at once, not over the course of several years and a dozen levels. None of these characters really have a level one incarnation. A suitable martial archetype for dungeons and dragons doesn't just need to be Hercules. It needs to be a nobody who can pick up a sword and become Hercules one day just by working really hard, and that's not something you see in Western fiction very often.

That is why, fiction wise, I've been playing with explicit power sources as mechanical hooks.

Mechanically, a power source starts out as something like a feat or an attuned magic item (a small to medium sized thing attached to a character), but you can use it to justify gaining levels in a class. And as you do so, the power source also gains power (becoming like a feat chain, or a more powerful version of the magic item).

Power sources might have a max on how many levels they can be used to justify. And they can be found in-game. And all PCs will start with one (which also explains why, mechanically, you gain competence so much faster than random people do; the world simulation problem).

Your power source could be Divine Blood (1) -- which starts out giving you death ward once per long rest. And it might be good for 5 levels (to start!), upgrading the death ward to 1/short rest, and maybe another feat-like ability you can pick from a menu.

Maybe later you kill a dragon, and bathe in its heart blood as you slay it -- and gain the Dragon Blood power source. Which gives you fire resistance initially, but could go a lot of directions from there (scales? fire breath? Turning into a half-dragon? Lots of ways!)

Like magic items, you can have a limit to how many power sources you are attuned to.

Anyhow, once you have these power sources as justification, martial abilities at higher levels can be insane without asking "why can a street urchin do that?". You can teleport as a high level Rogue? Well, you do have divine blood! Or, you bathed in the blood of a dragon. Or you swallowed the heart of the time lord. Or you practiced using ancient, mystic scrolls. Or one of many, many power sources, all of which justify "you are awesome" narratively.

This also works for spellcasters. It should take more than a few weeks to become an archmage -- but not if you have the soul of a demon prince, the blessing of a fey lord, and have read the entire endless book of all that which we do not know.

 

[MockingBird]

Oh sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. Ok, let's assume the current Fighter is Sgt. Rock.

If we want a, say, appropriately epic Fighter and a mundane Fighter to coexist, how do we do that, exactly? If we see spellcasters are actual superheroes, and we want to create a "Captain America Fighter", how does the mundane Fighter fit in the same world?

See the last time we had a regular Fighter and an appropriately superheroic Fighter was in 3.5 with the Warblade. Who simply did just about anything a Fighter could do and then some.

Only a very specific and optimized Fighter could compete with a Warblade, who had the ability to shrug off conditions, ignore the hardness of objects and damage resistance, leap high into the air, gain sensory abilities like scent, and grant allies bonus actions (among other things).

I just don't see how we can realistically have both as equivalent options.

I would say this is where session 0 plays a part. Setting the expectations of the game and world. Other than that I have no answer for a situation where two players want one of each in the same game.

 

[James Gasik]

The issue is, some people don't want the narrative that a character eventually becomes epic or mythical in some way. I liken this to OD&D actually. You actually had different tiers of play- Basic for low level scrubs trying not to die, Expert for dungeoneering veterans, Master for people who become incredibly powerful, up to 36th level characters, and finally, Immortals, honest to goodness demigods!

Some people are more comfortable with certain tiers of play than others. The issue is, over the years, D&D has shifted it's focus more towards mid-tier play than high-tier play. All the powerful foes and magic items and dangerous planes are still here, in case anyone wants to try, but WotC has learned that most DM's and players aren't going to get to those, and even if they do, they're going to run into issues.

The way the game is built now, running a game til level 20 is damn hard, because it's simply not balanced for it. A lot more is placed on the DM's plate by the rules.

In this respect, posters such as Oofta are correct in saying if you really wanted high tier play, you'd be better off with a Supers system that's actually designed for it.

While I want high tier play, and I want every class to eventually evolve into a suitably epic version of itself, I realize that doing so will fundamentally change the game, and the instant you tell people who like non-epic D&D that they have to stop playing by level 9 or so, they might bugger off to other systems, like Dungeon Crawl Classics or Shadow of the Demon Lord, which is something WotC isn't about to do unless they're absolutely sure that's where the money is.

And having separate books, like a Mythic Handbook isn't part of their current business model. They try to avoid niche products like the plague these days, as it's the most efficient way to make profits for Daddy Hasbro.

It'd be nice if D&D was treated the same way as MtG, which can have Secret Lairs and niche products and multiple formats...but TTRPG's cost too darned much. Just getting everyone to buy new books every 10 years or so is hard enough- after all, you have to sell these books to people who are presumably, already happy playing the game they have!

At which point, you have to make them dissatisfied with the current product somehow, in order to embrace the new hotness.

TLDR: D&D isn't actually many different things for many different people. It's always going to leave a group dissatisfied. You're not going to get WotC to build a game for everyone, because that's not profitable.

Someone is going to get edged out, no matter what happens. If the pendulum swings more towards the people who want more dynamic character classes, it's going to push out the people who are happy with the simple, grounded game experience. We can try to extend olive branches, but I don't see how that's going to work out in our current reality.

 

[BrokenTwin]

The Book of Nine Swords in 3.5 is the closest I think D&D has ever gotten to providing me with a canon mythical fighter I actually wanted to play and fulfilled the archetype I wanted.
... In fact, all of my favorite D&D classes (totemist, binder, swordsage) were late-era 3.5 classes. 4E made the type of weapon you used matter without being locked into a specific weapon, which 5E kind of but not really manages with fighting styles.

 

[Garthanos]

I just don't see how we can realistically have both as equivalent options.

I was considering options give the mortal bloodline an additional attunement slot or 2 and give them a Lucky in battle feat (martially useful?) and similar buffs maybe even require a bloodline to cast spells at all ... but yes its maybe not enough but do so with the right trappings

I wish we could go back to the 4e paradigm with 1-10 being Sgt. Rock, 11-20 being Captain America, and 21-30 being Thor.

basically the tiers were made distinct, The thematic buffs of Theme/Paragon Path/Epic Destiny are the last 3 tiers of 5e stretched out, 5e has the verbage just not the follow through.

That is why, fiction wise, I've been playing with explicit power sources as mechanical hooks.

Mechanically, a power source starts out as something like a feat or an attuned magic item (a small to medium sized thing attached to a character), but you can use it to justify gaining levels in a class. And as you do so, the power source also gains power (becoming like a feat chain, or a more powerful version of the magic item).

Power sources might have a max on how many levels they can be used to justify. And they can be found in-game. And all PCs will start with one (which also explains why, mechanically, you gain competence so much faster than random people do; the world simulation problem).

Your power source could be Divine Blood (1) -- which starts out giving you death ward once per long rest. And it might be good for 5 levels (to start!), upgrading the death ward to 1/short rest, and maybe another feat-like ability you can pick from a menu.

Maybe later you kill a dragon, and bathe in its heart blood as you slay it -- and gain the Dragon Blood power source. Which gives you fire resistance initially, but could go a lot of directions from there (scales? fire breath? Turning into a half-dragon? Lots of ways!)

Like magic items, you can have a limit to how many power sources you are attuned to.

Anyhow, once you have these power sources as justification, martial abilities at higher levels can be insane without asking "why can a street urchin do that?". You can teleport as a high level Rogue? Well, you do have divine blood! Or, you bathed in the blood of a dragon. Or you swallowed the heart of the time lord. Or you practiced using ancient, mystic scrolls. Or one of many, many power sources, all of which justify "you are awesome" narratively.

This also works for spellcasters. It should take more than a few weeks to become an archmage -- but not if you have the soul of a demon prince, the blessing of a fey lord, and have read the entire endless book of all that which we do not know.

Very intriguing