D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

In 5E, according to the PHB, this is just a regular Shove and then 5' of movement followed by an Extra Attack. Replace Shove with Shove Prone and it's been a standard part of the GWM PAM toolkit for... almost a decade now?

"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."

Source: Roll20 - Compendium and Rule Set Directory

I.e. it's not a problem.

except I said every round push and attack, for 5 levels I have 1 attack and 1 action surge per short rest, so I can't do it IE it is me being a problem to try.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I didn't see any mention of level 1 in the post, but maybe it was upthread. In that case you're right, at level 1 you can't do both things unless you have some feature like PAM that gives you an extra attack.

again this is in 4e normal, and up thread I was told I should be able to improvise things from 4e into 5e with most DMs... well I already called out most DMs wont let me do come and get it no matter how cool I describe it, but now I am at a level 1 at will that your best answer was I could be the rules try (were 4e it was auto) if I give up 1 attack at level 5+

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I wish.

In ten years of 5e, multiple groups, I’ve yet to see a single classed fighter played. Not once.

i've technically done it...once.

i was thinking of multiclassing after level 5 (my plan was battlemaster 5/swashbuckler 3+, then maybe back to battlemaster or on to something else), but i only got to level 4 with him before i got tired of running out of superiority dice in the first couple rounds of a fight.

6
I have seen 6, 8 if you count multi into rogue or barbarian only...
of those 6 5 of the players were unhappy with the results... when you add in the other 2 we had 1 happy with it 1 not.

of those 5 unhappy with straight fighter 3 were new players trying D&D for the first time and all of them since have gotten into "you need spells in some way" to get things done.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Harsh truth is that D&D and most of the TTRPGverse is mostly helmed by older folk who prefer High magic casters and low power warriors of the pulp fantasy days. The people who grew up with Lion-o beating up Mumm-Ra with just a magic sword aren't designing the warriors for D&D.

So it's at least 15 years before "I cut his death spell in half" becomes a standard action in D&D.

I was watching the new thundercats then found out about the old one... I bet no one making D&D is my age though.

 

[Stalker0]

Fighters are the most popularly played class in the game. Every bit of evidence we have says that people are very happy with the way fighters are in 5e. Why would WotC make any changes?

To me the biggest counter to this statement is: Are fighters "at high levels" happy?

We know from stats that the vast majority of tables rarely play high levels. So is it a scenario that the issues we outlined just aren't a problem for most groups, because their campaigns are over by the time the "real" high level magic juice comes online. Do tables that make it to high levels still enjoy their fighters, or are they are that point going "I mean I'm playing my guy because I've played them for 20 levels....but man I'm just involved like I used to be".

I don't have the answer to that, but its always my question. I do agree with Hussar that the feedback and stats say that people are pretty happy with fighters in general...but is that because they avoid the actual problem by finishing their games before the problem starts?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fighters are the most popularly played class in the game. Every bit of evidence we have says that people are very happy with the way fighters are in 5e. Why would WotC make any changes?

That's why you never see an argument about it online, or a ton of videos about how to homebrew the fighter into something deserving of existence.

That's also why the designers who clearly don't really want to have ended up advancing some sort of weapon specialization system and new tiered martial feats.

We didn't lose the fight, some people just started waving the white flag for us. Often by trying to use the idea that every new players has the fighter foisted upon them because 'simple' is proof that they're the most popular class.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

That's why you never see an argument about it online, or a ton of videos about how to homebrew the fighter into something deserving of existence.

that is also why I am the only one in this thread that sees it.. oh wait and you and...

We didn't lose the fight, some people just started waving the white flag for us. Often by trying to use the idea that every new players has the fighter foisted upon them because 'simple' is proof that they're the most popular class.

yup if enough people say "you already lost" some people will actually believe we lost

 

[Incenjucar]

Mostly this just causes me to lose more interest in WotC materials and spend more time working on homebrew. If they do fighters dirty yet again I've no reason to teach my sibling and their kids D&D when I could point them toward a system that's going to make my sense. Given my sibling did martial arts as a kid, they're not going to be impressed by rock'em sock'em robots either.

 

[Emberashh]

me the biggest counter to this statement is: Are fighters "at high levels" happy?

Entirely depends on the DM and their chosen adventure design (among other things).

All the classes, especially at high level, suffer when they aren't being given enough to do concurrently with each other, and Id argue given my experience playing at high level (my group actually almost exclusively played at this level for extended periods because we did not diddle daddle with the XP) that its an even bigger issue than intra-class disparities.

People often point to Wizards being able to shut down entire encounters with one spell, and while I aggressively agree that this is terrible design, at the same time, if an encounter is so shallow that one spell by one player is enough to end it, then it was just a bad encounter to begin with.

The thing about game design is that just shutting down the obviously broken isn't the only thing you need to do to resolve such issues. A shallow encounter is still shallow, even if theres no "end this encounter" button anymore.

When you approach the issue from this perspective of resolving both, that also helps to temper what you change so that they're not only less drastic (and thus less likely to induce unforeseen consequences), but require much less work to keep balanced relative to each other.

So sure, as Ive said elsewhere in a different way, martials can and ought to have more to do in and out of combat, especially at high level, but the encounters themselves need to be better too.

Ive talked about this example before, but one of my favorite encounter designs is the siege of a mountaintop city by an army of hundreds (1000s) of Orcs, a cabal of 9 Arch Mages, and an Ancient Red Dragon. While it functions around homebrew horde mechanics, what it accomplishes is sufficiently occupying a group of 6 level 20 players, without any players being able to just shut down the encounter, or going without the opportunities to be special.

Between protecting the town, slaughtering the army, dueling the mages, and fending off and eventually slaying the Dragon, theres plenty to do and a lot to consider about how to do it. Having better designed classes in this context would be cherries; delicious delicious cherries, but its never quite as satisfying to just eat Maraschinos out of the jar when you could have a whole Sundae.

 

[Incenjucar]

Not every encounter can be a grand engagement. If wizards are, by themselves, defining the kinds of encounters you can have, the game is about them.