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

[Minigiant]

Yeah, it's not so much that they went this way for martials but that they blended this with a completely different inspiration for spellcasters. The wizard equivalents in all these fantasy worlds don't compare at all to 20th level D&D wizards. Much more limited in effects, a cost to magic use, can't sling out 2-3+ spells per challenge, etc. Early editions did put some more limitations on casters -- spell disruption, high SR monsters, best saves for martial types, etc. but even those have faded.

It's more that the types of fantasy that had the martial equivalent of a mortal Archmage didn't exist in popular media until AFTER D&D was created.

The space between knight and demigod of strength didn't exist.

D&D combined inspiration. But there was a gap of inspirations between levels 11-20 for nonmagical spell users.

That's why in early D&D everyone stopped getting HD and features after level 10 or so. After level 10, there where only BAD GUYS and "Characters turned Classes" like Aragorn. There were few inspirations for the books that would be high level.

But the fans wanted more stuff and less restrictions. So casters got access to bad guy stuff without the drawbacks. And martial go nothing because there were no high level martials in the inspirations books.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well they can close a door and then put their foot against it. Does that work?

I mean there are benefits to being strong!

 

[Krachek]

That James Bond. He’s so dependent on engineers and gadgets. It’s the Engineers that are the truly powerful ones in the 007 movies. After all how would he ever get to Rome if they hadn’t built the plane!

Indeed with the right set of magic items a party of fighter don’t need any caster at all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

He would take everything the Wizard threw at him and the wizard would be dead in seconds. Probably killed by a pencil.

Good joke

A wizards resilience is massively overstated as is their ability to get things done. Usually relying on Shrodinger’s Wizard again.

No it isn't, because of what you are listing down below

In D&D the most common thing that usually needs to get done is to kill something in a timely manner. Usually while it’s trying to kill you. You see it time and time again. Most other tasks can be accomplished in multiple ways over a fairly indeterminate amount of time. Killing things efficiently is the universal constant in every D&D adventure ever published.

There are some notable exceptions, like Wild Beyond the Witchlight, but even that just allows for alternatives. It doesn’t mean killing isn’t a perfectly viable solution. Or if your feeling kind, just incapacitate them… it’s the same thing in 5e.

Right, everything revolves around dealing with combat. So every wizard knows they have low AC, and therefore they take things to deal with that. The best spells for dealing with that are level 1 spells. Even without finding a single spell scroll (which they can do) they get 8 spells of 1st level.

They only need two to reliably have an AC of 20. That leaves them with plenty of other spells.

And for dealing with combat? That is easy. After all, they get four spells of every level, minimum, and they only need one damage spell and one control spell. Now, wizard's can't forget spells, so that means that by level 11 or so, they have about 8 spells for dealing with combat, either pure damage or control, or sometimes both.

You are correct, a wizard might not have ever solution to every problem ever conceived... but Combat is the one problem they KNOW will be needing dealt with. And so they are very likely to be prepared to kill things or incapacitate them, and can do so better than martials by a WIDE margin.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The saddest thing about this debate is that it ignores the fact that a fighter is better with a wizard helping them out and a wizard is better with a fighter standing between them and their foes.

A wizard and a fighter is better than two wizards or two fighters. In 30 years of gaming, across multiple groups, online and face to face… I’ve never seen a party made up of wizards.

Yeah, it would be really silly to have a famous group of wizard adventurers who focused on the Sword Coast. I mean, who would ever try and play The Wizards of the Coast...

But sure, Fighters are better with magical aid, and wizards like having fighters take all the damage for them. But... notice anything... unbalanced about that? Like, how the fighter gets BETTER but the only thing the fighter offers the wizard is a meat shield? Because... that's all they CAN offer the wizard. "I'll get punched in the face, stabbed and burned, so you can be the key piece in us winning the fight."

What if... we are tired of that?

 

[Remathilis]

I think there is a 3rd

The world is so supernatural that the very few masters can do supernatural things at the peak of their training.

But I don't care that much about the specifics in D&D which is so hodge podge anyway.

Just have a class that does cool martial stuff that starts off mundune and gets to supernatural martial feats at higher levels. Justify it with a "mysterious background". Somehow they are different and maybe they are the son of a god, maybe something else. Feel free to flesh it out or not.

Done. Free reign to design because its magic. Don't call it the Fighter because why have to deal with that baggage.

There's the seperate debate on how to make the Fighter or mundane martial cool or powerful enough or complex enough or whatever.

Btw -- I'm actually in the reign in spellcasters camp so we don't have to push martials to these extremes. But I don't see that ever happening again. IF we are stuck will current spellcasters then let's put this optional class in.

Again: what is Peak? Peak like Batman or Peak like Superman? That matters a lot. Batman might be a great fighter and athlete, but he's still a man and needs tech (magic) to do what Supes does in his underwear. But that's the rub, even if we all agree martials need a boost, are we talking Batman level or Superman level? Cape glider or flight? Baterangs or heat vision?

Now, if the goal is to introduce a Superman class next to a Batman fighter, I guess that is doable. The fighter is already outclassed by 10 other classes, what's one more? If the goal is to make the fighter INTO a Superman class (and there are people who have advocated for such an idea) you're going to need to give me the "Kryptonian powered by the yellow sun" answer to why they learned to fly and shoot fire beams from their eyes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But the fans wanted more stuff and less restrictions. So casters got access to bad guy stuff without the drawbacks. And martial go nothing because there were no high level martials in the inspirations books.

Yeah, this was something I brought up earlier in the thread, but it is a great point.

Can you name a single, high level, martial threat? Not someone like Strahd who has vampire magic, or Lord Soth who has Death Knight magic, but someone with no magic, only pure martial skill, who is a CR 20+ threat? It is trivially easy to find mages at that threat level. Acerak, Halaster Blackcloak, we've had entire adventures already based around them. And nothing for the martials.

Because they aren't threatening enough.

 

[Minigiant]

Again: what is Peak? Peak like Batman or Peak like Superman? That matters a lot. Batman might be a great fighter and athlete, but he's still a man and needs tech (magic) to do what Supes does in his underwear. But that's the rub, even if we all agree martials need a boost, are we talking Batman level or Superman level? Cape glider or flight? Baterangs or heat vision?

Now, if the goal is to introduce a Superman class next to a Batman fighter, I guess that is doable. The fighter is already outclassed by 10 other classes, what's one more? If the goal is to make the fighter INTO a Superman class (and there are people who have advocated for such an idea) you're going to need to give me the "Kryptonian powered by the yellow sun" answer to why they learned to fly and shoot fire beams from their eyes.

That's where multiple classes come in and where D&D fails.
Different classes have different peaks.

The barbarian who just gets stronger, faster, and tougher must bypass Olympian standards if it is to keep up with the Archmage.

The weaponmaster who knows Sensei Wu's Waterfall Slash, Chief Fan's Quashing Pummel, and Lord Ramber's Sword Reign only needs to get to Olympic standards as their special moves are epic.

Whereas the greatest knight does not need to even be Olympic as they have extreme Charm and can attract an intelligent Sword of Chivalry that will only attune to the most knightly of knights.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, this was something I brought up earlier in the thread, but it is a great point.

Can you name a single, high level, martial threat? Not someone like Strahd who has vampire magic, or Lord Soth who has Death Knight magic, but someone with no magic, only pure martial skill, who is a CR 20+ threat? It is trivially easy to find mages at that threat level. Acerak, Halaster Blackcloak, we've had entire adventures already based around them. And nothing for the martials.

Because they aren't threatening enough.

It's because the inspiration that D&D used don't include them as models.
D&D came out before Tier3/Paragon and Tier4/Epic martials became popular as villains or heroes.
And D&D rules were designed without Tier3/Paragon and Tier4/Epic martials in mind.

That's the source of D&D's disconnect.

Strong martial villians became popular after D&D "locked in" its inspirations and it hasn't unlocked since the mid 80s.

 

[Hussar]

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

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

At what point didn't we lose?

10 years and /edit to correct - a grand total of SEVEN new battlemaster maneuvers. A couple of fighter subclasses, none of which have any new mechanics. No expansion on weapons or armor. No expansion into skills. A handful of new feats.

Compared to an entire caster class - artificer - dozens of new spells, dozens of caster feats. Heck, Spelljammer FORCES you to have a caster in the group. You absolutely cannot Spelljam without a caster. Full stop. As in your campaign cannot progress if you don't have a caster.

THAT'S how important casters are in the game.

Look, I get it. I have banged this drum since 5e first hit the streets. But, at some point, the realization has to set in that we're just whistling in the wind and no one actually cares.