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

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

...no you haven't. you've just thrown around a bunch of names only you have any (edit: proper) context for.

I can write action surge as a spell and I can write spells as martial maneuvers (in fact in order to play a 'fighter' my group will often take bard or warlock and refluff)

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Second assertion is incorrect. Most Fantasy Heroes DO NOT rely on magical items.

Heck, I'm just going to turn around. Let's see...

Dresden Files? Dresden does not RELY on magical items. He has them, many he made himself, but he can do magic without them.
Kim Harrison Hollows series, Rachel Morgan does not rely on magical items.
Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels series, Kate Daniels absolutely does not rely on magical items
Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson Series? Mercy does not rely on magical items
Codex of Alera? No one there relies on magical items (don't even know if they HAVE any)
Mistborn/Alloy of Law? No one relies on magical items (though magic is fueled by eating and burning metal)
Stormlight Archive? Okay, some people rely on magical items... but it turns out those magical swords are actually the corpses of REAL magical forces, and poor shadows of a better way.
Threadbare? No reliance on magical items
Beesong Chronicles? no Reliance on Magical items
HunterxHunter? No Reliance on Magical items
Gunnerkrigg Court? No Reliance on magical items.
One Piece? No reliance on magical items.
Girl Genius? Eh, steampunk fantasy, so everything is SCIENCE! even the supposedly magical stuff.

Seriously, I might struggle to find a single fantasy series in my entire house where the heroes RELY on magical items, and the very few I might be able to think of likely have a third act triumph of revealing the hero didn't truly need the magical items.



I have no problem getting magical items, they are part of the game and a fun part of the game. The problem is relying on them to be a cool hero. The problem is "You need magical gear to matter". Because that goes against every single fantasy story I love.

and the ones that do get the item or two at character creation and it is just an excuse for the power...


Power Rangers
Sailor Moon
SHe Ra
Thor

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

There is the camp that says the best way to give fighters "the juice" is through magic items. Its certainly an option, but it does have a few roadblocks.

1) There is no guarrantee an item goes to the fighter. The group might just decide the flying boots are better in the mages hand. This is especially true if you are putting in a lot of gear especially to balance the fighter..... players might naturally gravitate towards "everyone gets some magic items"

2) It is DM dependent. A common weapon in this argument is that casters can "do as they wish" and naturally grow in power, whereas martials are more "mother may I", relying on looser DM interpretations to get their power. In some ways this is the same area.

Also those items make a Hexblade or Bladesinger

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This entire mind set needs to be done away with.

It comes down to "I disagree and I feel I am in the majority"

nobody (I doubt even WotC) has enough data to truely say who is and who is not in the majority. You started by calling out how odd my game is, I pointed out it wasn't THAT odd cause I have gotten the house rule idea here.
I am on Twitter and Tic TOk and Reddit, I go to stores and cons for gaming. I don't know if my groups view is the majority, but is sure as heck isn't as unheard of as you think.

You see a lot of folks claiming that fighters are never worth playing and that casters are always the “correct answer”? Seriously?

Even with most of the other people who want the fighter to be boosted or otherwise express dissatisfaction you’re the only person I can recall ever making such a claim. Even the “sidekick” folks aren’t as extreme as you are in their rhetoric about the fighter.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Also, when it comes to not wanting heroes to be "fantastic", I just want to point out that just about any race other than Human is automatically "fantastic". Why should an Elven, Warforged, or Aasimar Fighter be unable to perform fantastic feats, exactly? Even Legolas has preternatural abilities on full display in the Lord of the Rings movies, and he's a wood elf with apparently no special powers of magic or healing! What a slacker!

Yeah, this idea has been rattling around in my head for the last few days. We talk about these things as though martials can only be human, but Martials are basically identical regardless of species.


I was thinking of the scene where Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn are tracking the orcs, and it makes note that they ran for days without rest. Legolas because he was an Elf. Gimli because he was a dwarf. Aragorn because he had special magic elf-blood and had been a ranger and was trained in these ways, because otherwise he couldn't have kept up. But in DnD... none of them could have done that. And yet, what reasoning could be given that a dwarf COULDN'T do that? And if the dwarf can, well, we already know that Aragorn's training meant he could too.

 

[Vaalingrade]

and the ones that do get the item or two at character creation and it is just an excuse for the power...


Power Rangers
Sailor Moon
SHe Ra
Thor

Power rangers and its offshoot (VR Troopers, Bettleborgs, and the best of them all: Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog) is the rare one where the upgrades come fast and heavy ala D&D in some seasons: Morpher, weapon, blaster, up-grade blaster, zord, sometimes and upgrade zord, battalizer, sometimes a suit upgrade, sometimes a vehicle, sometimes a shareable shield

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think that starting at 1st level all the way up there are spells that need to be adjusted

I can agree with that, but I find as many 1st level spells that need to be improved in power as those that could be theoretically nerfed. And this typically holds true as we go up in the levels. I was mainly referring to the big spells that I agree warp the game too far.

those 3 spells I would say need to be not spells... they need to be part of a new subsystem of rituals, and have them be as you point out rare... more like a reward then a spell

Agree, well, not sure about making a ritual subsystem, but they certainly need to be more like rewards and McGuffins than normal spells. Otherwise you end up with a character who can trivially become immortal and a one-man army.

here is the thing, the response was to someone telling me the exact opposite (although by rules I can not resay exactly) that martials only need a very slight increase if we take casters down by half or more.

MY personal thought is closer to you... hit some spells with a nerf bat and raise all the other classes to equal full casters

Ah, if it is only a few spells being nerfed, then I can likely agree (maybe not completely, I've tended to up spell damage in my games for certain spells, one that comes to mind is Blight). Some of your phrasing though seemed to fall in line with this idea of heavily nerfing casters. Not from you, but from others, I've seen examples such as rolling against a high magic DC and on a failure having the spell not only fail, but backlash and damage the caster.

I can't deny such an idea would bring things closer to some sort of balance, but I think it would make everything worse. If the goal becomes "make sure casters can't cast spells" then we have achieved balance, but in the worst way possible. I much prefer taking a few of those outlier spells that are far beyond what they should be (or should be gated in a similar manner to magical items) and tune them, while raising martial's profiles.

 

[Chaosmancer]

and the ones that do get the item or two at character creation and it is just an excuse for the power...


Power Rangers
Sailor Moon
SHe Ra
Thor

(Has been following a Sailor Moon fanfic for a while)

And some of these are even blatantly not items. For example, in Sailor Moon you in theory have things like the Moon rod, Sailor Neptune's Mirror, Sailor Uranus's Sword, or Sailor Pluto's Crimson Orb.... but those actually aren't items. They are manifestations of the character's souls.

I know Power Ranger's lore is more complex than I think, but often the weapons they gain from the morphing grid are just... parts of them. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they actually don't exist before the Ranger transforms and brings them into existence as just an extension of their power.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

You see a lot of folks claiming that fighters are never worth playing and that casters are always the “correct answer”? Seriously?

alot no... more then I see of people talking about how cool fighters are YES. I would say it's like 5-10% on both though cause most people fall into "yeah I can see that" to both sides and don't post or talk about major one way or the other...

Infact my personal experience is even people who talk UP the fighter have at least 1 "Oh but that full caster took my thunder that one time" story even if they then dismiss it.

Even with most of the other people who want the fighter to be boosted or otherwise express dissatisfaction you’re the only person I can recall ever making such a claim. Even the “sidekick” folks aren’t as extreme as you are in their rhetoric about the fighter.

what are you talking about? at least 5 posters here on enworld say similar if not the same thing, and the first time I heard it was on Redit.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

alot no... more then I see of people talking about how cool fighters are YES. I would say it's like 5-10% on both though cause most people fall into "yeah I can see that" to both sides and don't post or talk about major one way or the other...

Infact my personal experience is even people who talk UP the fighter have at least 1 "Oh but that full caster took my thunder that one time" story even if they then dismiss it.

what are you talking about? at least 5 posters here on enworld say similar if not the same thing, and the first time I heard it was on Redit.

I haven’t seen it. Could be I have them ignored, could be you are interpreting statements as more similar to yours than I am due to not intending to sound that extreme, could be something else entirely. Regardless, I don’t see it.