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

[Incenjucar]

Inherent bonuses are perfectly fine, as long as you're ok with the flavor. I personally hate magic items that have a numerical bonus, and would prefer them to have special powers, so when I last ran Pathfinder 1e, I used both inherent bonuses and magic weapons with special powers.

Oh there were plenty of magic too, we just snipped out the whole magic item pluses treadmill.

 

[Clint_L]

"All Day Long" is not a thing that comes up often. It's a red herring. In any case, we don't need to gaslight each other about our experiences. If you have different experiences, just state so.

I understand that it is a current trend to accuse those we disagree with of "gaslighting." It is highly offensive, and you do not cite where I allegedly "gaslight," but simply throw it out as a blanket attack. Unless you mean my use of the common expression "all day long" to connote something that can be done at will, with unlimited resources, as in Captain America: "I can do this all day"?

FYI, accusing someone of "gaslighting" is to accuse them of a calculated campaign of distorting reality in order to cause someone else to question their grasp on it, and even their sanity. I don't do it. Ever. You casually accusing me of "gaslighting" rather than actually addressing the substance of my plainly stated argument suggests that you do not argue in good faith, and probably did not have an actual rebuttal anyway.

 

[HammerMan]

Oh there were plenty of magic too, we just snipped out the whole magic item pluses treadmill.

I am a BIG proponent of POWERFUL magic… like giving rare and very rare items out at low levels and legendary plus at mid. But giving fewer. You won’t find 10 +1 short swords but you might find a +3 keen flame tonge short sword by 5th level

 

[HammerMan]

I understand that it is a current trend to accuse those we disagree with of "gaslighting." It is highly offensive, and you do not cite where I allegedly "gaslight," but simply throw it out as a blanket attack. Unless you mean my use of the common expression "all day long" to connote something that can be done at will, with unlimited resources, as in Captain America: "I can do this all day"

I disagree with you a lot but I agree here. You have a diffrent opinions and even if I dislike your way of conveying it I don’t think gaslighting is the right fit.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I find them significantly less compelling though when they are baked into the power budget for the game. I think this is one of the weaknesses of PF2e for example.

I mean, they are baked into D&D 5E: just look at how many things have resistance or immunity to non-magical damage. You gotta have that stuff. PF2 just puts it into the numbers. However... there's something else we can comment on here.

In my 4E game, I made it so that everyone automatically made objects they wielded the equivalent of the appropriate magic weapon for their level, including improvised weapons, so they could, as I put it, defeat a dragon with a turkey leg.

6 years, 30 levels, 0 problems.

I am a fan of Automatic Bonus Progression in PF2. Normally the game's damage output is managed by getting "runes" on your weapons that increase your damage dice, adding more as time goes on. But Automatic Bonus Progression just adds in all the bonuses you would be assumed to get from magical items right into your character for attack, defense, and skills. So suddenly your high-level fighter picks up a 1d2 butterknife and he's tossing 3d2 for that, or he takes a chair and is tossing out 3d6 damage every time he hits someone with it. High-level characters become dangerous with anything in their hands (including their hands, which will be dealing 2d4/3d4/4d4 damage over time).

If there were one thing I wish that was as automatic as Free Archetype in PF2 (this is basically the equivalent of playing with Feats in 5E), it would be ABP. It should have been standard because God it is so cool.

 

[Minigiant]

I think I could be persuaded that there is a version that I'd like, but anything predicated on some synthetic need for magic would be a nonstarter for me.

Magic items being baked in the math is the butts to me. Don't like.

But a high level warrior to me need high magic, high tech, access to high skill, or be supernatural to face high level challenges.

Saying the King of Devils can be killed with a pencil takes out all the wonder for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Saying the King of Devils can be killed with a pencil takes out all the wonder for me.

Puts a lot of wonder into the guy who threw it through his throat though. And that's the point.

It's not the king of devils' story, it's the guys charged with ending him.

 

[Emberashh]

Ok. You said:


Is there something I wasn't clear about?

I asked you to quote me saying "you must follow attack rules".

You haven't done that.

"oh you want to be able to make a called shot to blind the dragon? Yeah that's cool, roll with disadvantage"....three sessions later, every attack is a called shot

If we want Martial to have more options its kind of strange to lament the inevitability that those options will become used more.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay, we insert half a line of fluff in the fighter’s description about how they passively harness ki to go beyond the limits of ordinary folk and empower their techniques, can the fighter now have an ability that makes ordinary weapons bypass nonmagic resistance while in their hands?

This is exactly what I would like.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Saying the King of Devils can be killed with a pencil takes out all the wonder for me.

In fairness, that was magic. The pencil disappeared.