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

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

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.

I can't even imagine someone makeing a 12+ level adventure and having to "account for" something cool the fighter can do. On the other hand EVERY 12+ level adventure has to be built thinking about 3rd-6th level spells

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Whether or not something is worthy to be encounter should not be dictated by whether or not there is a wizard.

so lets say I make an adventure, and there are 5 spells that in theory could circumvent or even end the adventure? MY choice is to rewrite it, or accept that it could happen (I mean I could also just know my players don't have speak with dead contact other plane and raise dead).
With a fighter it is "Hit hard and take hard hit" at level 1 and level 20 and every level in between.

 

[TheSword]

Can’t wait to see the new 5e fighter and how the fun weapon specializations turn out. We could have more crunch but as long as it doesn’t go anywhere near the Book of Nine Swords I’ll be happy.

Fighters are fun and have been for most of 5e, tough, strong or fast, tactical hard-points that softer PCs rally around and rely on. A nice mix of bonus, reaction and actions plus some free actions if you’re a Battlemaster.

They’re the Ever-PC. Good for all seasons. Welcome in every party! Time and again Fighter been demonstrated to be powerful. Fighters don’t need any more power.

For players wanting their big strong fighters to fly, or turn invivisble or deflect magic missiles there are feats, subclasses and multi-classing. Fighters get plenty of access to magic if they are willing to pay for it.

I have no earthly idea why people keep trying to make fighters into something they’re not instead of playing a subclass, an alternative class, multiclassing or making up their own class.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I actually think a neat concept would be that past level....10 lets say, you no longer get XP for regular encounters. You have to go to other planar places to keep advancing.

in theory (and in the case of my personal experence) that is awesome
but if people play a game where there fighter rogue and barbarian hit level 10 they have no way to get to those planar adventures.

Again its the notion that a mortal realm just doesn't have threats that big and crazy, but in the planes oh yeah all sorts of crazy stuff happens.

Will never happen I know, but it would again give a good differentiation with those tiers.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

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.

Back in the last days of 3.5 we had a game START with a very similar premise (we were all 4th level and it was a huge number of orcs, ogers and goblins all mixed and it was 13 casters leading them but they were all diffrent types of casters and the red dragon was a dracolich controlled by the casters... but very similar.

I even got to play a fighter like character back then, that was my half giantess warblade/psiwarrior.

 

[TheSword]

in theory (and in the case of my personal experence) that is awesome
but if people play a game where there fighter rogue and barbarian hit level 10 they have no way to get to those planar adventures.

Why can’t they step through one of the many many portal that exist in fantasy games?

I can get to London by taking a train. I don’t need to walk there in my own steam… in fact I never have. Yet have had many happy adventures in London.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Why can’t they step through one of the many many portal that exist in fantasy games?

I can get to London by taking a train. I don’t need to walk there in my own steam… in fact I never have. Yet have had many happy adventures in London.

You can make up what ever excuse you want, but somehow I doubt catching the 9am flight to berlin is as easy as catching the 11am train to london, and neither is as hard as getting a flight to mars... let alone hell.

(now I am assuming it is easier to get the train cause I have never left my country but I understand international flights are a pain)

 

[Emberashh]

I can't even imagine someone makeing a 12+ level adventure and having to "account for" something cool the fighter can do. On the other hand EVERY 12+ level adventure has to be built thinking about 3rd-6th level spells

Oftentimes you don't have to; a sufficiently motivated martial will find things to do in an encounter that requires sufficiently divided attention.

Wizards get a lot of hype but they can't actually do everything all at once, nor can any of the other casters.

And that's all before you start looking at encounter designs that focus on needing more than one player, not just a specific set of classes. The classic "I stand here you stand over there" puzzle is the simplest example of how encounter design can help equalize even extremely disparate characters.

And before anyone tries to jump down my throat, here is the disclaimer stating that:

1. Yes, a Caster could probably solve that deliberately simple example on their own. Not only is the example not meant to be anything more than it is, but this also just points at magic as being badly designed, as argued previously.

2. No, stating that encounter design can help address class disparities does not mean there isn't still a problem even if you do it.

3. No, I am not stating there is no problem with class disparities by expressing a solution that doesn't address it directly.

 

[Stalker0]

I can't even imagine someone makeing a 12+ level adventure and having to "account for" something cool the fighter can do. On the other hand EVERY 12+ level adventure has to be built thinking about 3rd-6th level spells

The closest to me is the high level barbarians grapple power, which I have seen just shut down fights. that's about it.

 

[TheSword]

You can make up what ever excuse you want, but somehow I doubt catching the 9am flight to berlin is as easy as catching the 11am train to london, and neither is as hard as getting a flight to mars... let alone hell.

(now I am assuming it is easier to get the train cause I have never left my country but I understand international flights are a pain)

Who cares if it easier? (It is still pretty easy) That is a story issue and an opportunity for interesting encounters. A characters fun-ness to play is not based on its ability to work against the DM or the game world. That’s just how a small subset of players get their kicks.

Why is being able to planeshift straight to the seventh level of Mount Celestia and skip the good stuff in between being seen as a good thing we want to encourage.

Incidentally this is a problem that is predicated on the idea that every wizard has access to every spell.