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

[doctorbadwolf]

The other side of the coin is that the skill system could use some definitions. What does a DC 25 or DC 30 actually let you do? The DMG kinda sorta has some guidance, but, not really? If you have a character that can routinely hit a DC 25, that's already pretty close to superhuman. That's stuff that most of us wouldn't even try to do because it's so difficult. And DC 30? That's right off the charts.

Yet, a high level rogue can certainly hit DC 25's routinely. Heck, with Expertise and Reliable Talent, a DC 25 check becomes automatic without too much difficulty and a DC 30 is plausible.

So, what does that mean? What can I do with a DC 30 check? Shouldn't I be able to walk on air? But, despite the DMG calling out DC 30 checks as legendary, there's no actual guidance for what you can do with that.

Giving Fighters expertise and then some guidance on what you can actually do with super high checks would go a long way towards helpign fighters out.

A double edged sword. Define skills too much and, frankly, they suck to use for a lot of us.

So I’d want general rules for what grandmasters of a skill can do, with some examples, but not a chart of what thing is which DC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Class "balance" means the "Fighter" contributes as much to combat as a Wizard or any 5e class does.

Thats great. But. The goal of "balance" must also mean, the Fighter contributes as much to noncombat as the other 5e classes do.

Try convincing WotC. Balanced has never meant that as far as they're concerned.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Because the fighter itself is not a family of honed archetypes like other classes, there is no single feature that could represent them all. And a subclass lacks the space to provide a substitute.

You aren't wrong and more focused archetypes would help you figure out how that high level martial would "solve" challenges and probably make defining abilities easier.

That said, the current game does have a non martial class that just shoves all them together and lets the player pick. And the player doesn't even need to choose just one -- they can cherry pick abilities from any of the archetypes....

 

[Chaosmancer]

Teleporting could be ok depending on certain background, but I don't see why they can't just move, jump, swing, smash objects, etc. and attack? No reason the attack action couldn't include a bunch of abstract movement.

It's not really dimension door -- it's just narrative permission (and more limited permission) to move from A to B within 120ft bypassing any obstactles with cool martial stuff that doesn't need to be specified before hand.

I chose teleport to avoid opportunity attacks, I wanted to emulate the "blink and you miss it" style attacks that strike down foes without them even being aware the sword was swung. The combat art can work physically and narratively however the player wanted, but mechanically I wanted to make sure it did everything I envisioned.

If you just give them 120 ft of movement, then they are vulnerable to the things that affect movement.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It should go to notice that WOTC solved a lot of the barbarian class's disparity in the Playtest but not the fighter's,

Why?

Because the Barbarian is well defined whereas the Fighter is vague.

Because the Barbarian is well defined, WOTC could go "Wellwhen the barbarian rages it channels energies right. Usually its primal but it could be divine with a zealot or arcane with a wild soul. And sometimes its just anger and sweat. Well what if this anger lets the barbarian use their Strength modifier for some skill checks. And at high levels a barbarian is so strong that their muscles can't give aresultlower than their score. Because MUSCLES AND RAGE!"

Some might see it a bit weird but if you accepted the barbarian so far as the rage monster, a little more rage into noncombat is not the last straw and fits the archetype. The question becomes what is the DC to jump an extra 20 ft up?

But for the fighter, the fighter on just the nonmmagical side represents:

1. The Brute: The strong tough and fast bruiser who focuses training on athleticism.
2. The Knight: The strong warrior of a warrior caste/class/culture/country who masters the combat arts and cultural ideals of warriors of his heritage
3. The Warlord: The general of the tactics and strategy who puts emphasis on the mental side of combat and the positioning of combatants.
4. The Weaponmaster: The master of the very art of weapons combat and the technical and philosophical aspects of the duel

Each one of these fighter archetypes would handle high levels differently. A Brute would just jump at the flying dragon whereas the Warlord goads the dragon down with insults and Weaponmaster switches to a bow. A Knight might have skills in Diplomacy whereas the Brute might pull a barbarian and trade Cha for Str in Intimidation while the Warlord and Weaponmaster use Insight to give the Rogue hints into what words triggered responses in the cornered foe.

Because the fighter itself is not a family of honed archetypes like other classes, there is no single feature that could represent them all. And a subclass lacks the space to provide a substitute.

This displays how it breaks down at high levels. 14 Charisma and Animal Handling Proficiency might be enough to be a chivalrous mounted knight at level 5. But at level 15 not only is it not enough, others can copy that easily and it isn't enough to mimic epic knightly actions.

The barbarian fix was nearly perfect. The ONLY thing I don't like is that they need some uses outside of combat that use a different resource. Rage is vital in combat, without rage barbarians cannot contribute in combat at any appreciable level. And so using a rage outside of combat is just not going to happen.

For fighters, I sort of ended up agreeing with you. I ended up creating this ability:

Practical Knowledge: When not honing your skill with a blade, or caring for your armor, you spend time with people. You listen to the fishmonger, the retired mercenary, the streetsweeper, the pickpocket, and you incorporate their knowledge and knacks into your own view of the world. Pick one of the following options, if one of these does not describe your character, you may work with your DM to craft a similar option by picking four skill checks (skills, tools, or initiative).

• Ambush Leader: Stealth, acrobatics, Initiative, and Survival
• Commander: Intimidation, Persuasion, Performance, Insight
• Tactical Officer: History, Investigation, Insight, Perception
• Charlatan: Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Deception, Disguise Kit
• Siege-Breaker: Athletics, History, Intimidation, Land Vehicles

A number of times equal to your proficiency modifier per day, you may roll your proficiency die and add it to a check from your list, as you add the know-how you have gathered to your work. You may choose to use this ability after rolling, but before knowing the result.

The problem of going further than this though is the identity of the Experts. Rogues in particular are the non-magical skill experts. They have high mobility too. So it is tricky to give fighter's specifically abilities which would compete with the Rogue's niche.

Then again, make the skill system a bit more robust, by adding things like this:

If you make an intimidation, persuasion, or deception check the DC is either 15, the target’s intelligence, or the target’s wisdom. If the target is proficient in insight, increase the DC by +3. However, if you exceed the DC by 5 or more, the target is considered either frightened or charmed by you (as appropriate to the check and situation) for 1 minute, at which point they can roll a save versus your check result if you are still interacting. (Errata: if you hurt a charmed target or someone they care deeply about, you break the charm effect)

And you could end up creating possible solutions and then giving the two classes two different routes to the same destination.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I chose teleport to avoid opportunity attacks, I wanted to emulate the "blink and you miss it" style attacks that strike down foes without them even being aware the sword was swung. The combat art can work physically and narratively however the player wanted, but mechanically I wanted to make sure it did everything I envisioned.

If you just give them 120 ft of movement, then they are vulnerable to the things that affect movement.

Sure, you could model it that way.

But it also doesn't have to be 120 ft of regular movement. It can be a standard action that includes the movement in abstraction. You attack anything within a 15 ft wide by 120 line, ending up next to the last target. It's not a move action and movement in a regular way so none of that applies. Maybe you are so good it is not hindered by anything -- entanglements, difficult terrain, opportunity attacks, etc. More words but 5e has gotten away from standardized mechanics, key words, etc. anyway.

So yes teleport would probably do this as the mechanics with the right fluff. But I'm definitely hesitate to go this way officially as you might get people who can't see past the mechanics and "teleport" to not really mean teleport... Just give them the spell crowd...

 

[Chaosmancer]

Bring back fighter proxy military rank, your fighter is of X level, they are important enough to arrange an impromptu meeting with anyone of Y station,

The problem with this is it implies too much backstory and has weird implications. At least, with how I'm understanding it. After all, your elven fighter could hold the rank of Lt. Col. but that doesn't mean they can meet with Captain of the Watch in a Dwarven city, because the Dwarves don't care about your rank. And then it opens up politics.

I think I'd rather have military ranks in backgrounds, to allow players more flexibility about what it all means. Besides, high level adventurers tend to make their own reputations and that is a bit more flexible.

Maybe too rogue-y but the fighter is in tune with the citizens and has advanced to pick up information and word on the street stuff from them.
Let them rally the citizens for things, construct a building, raise funds, guards to protect something while they’re away,

Heh, totally riffed off this.

Providing/receiving better flanking bonuses, hell just having better attack bonuses, auras like the paladins even,
getting to make bonus action checks to discern information about their enemies including stats, tactics, weaknesses and even what they’re going to do next turn, perhaps something similar to find ways to exploit the environment/battlefield,
Actions that can move allies up and down the initiative order as needed or let them act out of turn,
Marking/taunting/drawing aggro,

Flanking bonuses are tricky. I'm not against it, but they are tricky to work with. Auras work well, I put them in a subclass personally, but I did give a high level aura to fighters. It was part of the capstone though.

Icon of War: At 20th level, your prowess on the battlefield is unmatched.You increase your proficiency bonus to +7, all attacks with non-magical weapons count as magical for the purposes of overcoming Immunity and Damage Resistance.
Additionally, your sheer presence is overwhelming. Enemies must succeed a Wisdom saving throw vs a DC of 8+ prof + (your choice of str, con or dex) to move within 15 ft of you. Once they make this save, they are immune to this effect until you drop an enemy to zero hp or score a critical hit.

I don't know if you need the bonus action, but then again, I'd want to check what the Study action can do. I do feel like a high level fighter does just know a bunch of that stuff. Turning it actionable is a different beast though.

Marking I put in my combat arts system, but it is also a DMG alternate rule that can apply to all attacks. We do need more taunting (also put that in my arts rules)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure, you could model it that way.

But it also doesn't have to be 120 ft of regular movement. It can be a standard action that includes the movement in abstraction. You attack anything within a 15 ft wide by 120 line, ending up next to the last target. It's not a move action and movement in a regular way so none of that applies. Maybe you are so good it is not hindered by anything -- entanglements, difficult terrain, opportunity attacks, etc. More words but 5e has gotten away from standardized mechanics, key words, etc. anyway.

So yes teleport would probably do this as the mechanics with the right fluff. But I'm definitely hesitate to go this way officially as you might get people who can't see past the mechanics and "teleport" to not really mean teleport... Just give them the spell crowd...

Eh, I'm really kind of done worrying about that crowd. I think if you wanted to you could easily just do something like

"You teleport up to 120 ft, breaking this path up as desired. You can describe this journey in any logical way you desire, as you travel from your starting position to your ending position, attacking enemies along the way" and then maybe give an example of a fighter doing some crazy parkour thing.

 

[Mistwell]

Another claim I want to debunk is that not needing to spend resources to act and having greater base defence + HP, means that when spellcasters are low on HP and running low or out of slots the martial classes will carry the day. NO, that is when the adventuring day ends unless the DM has to add reasons to force continuation and when the DM has to add in such contrivances to cover design decisions problems will add up further.

That's not how our campaigns have ever gone and I don't think you're "debunking" anything by declaring your campaigns have gone that way. We do a lot of dungeons, WOTC has published a large number of dungeons in their published adventures for 5e, and USUALLY there is some pressure on the party to either not rest, or to make it difficult to rest, whenever the party happens to want to do so due to spells running out. Resource management is a major component of all our spellcasters games because that's how these adventures are built (and it makes sense to build them that way not artificially, but because a 5 minute work day is artificial while resting in hostile territory is naturally complicated). Running low on spells happens fairly often because of this, and finding a secure place to rest is a common theme for games in these published adventures.

[Edit - sorry I just realized how old your message is for this thread and how far behind I am in reading it. Feel free to ignore if this is irrelevant to the current conversation.]

 

[Mistwell]

My point from the first dozens of pages is D&D doesn't even know what high level is.

And WOTC refuses to take a stand.

So all they can produce for high levels is Mega Dungeons which restrict or remove the strengths of high level magic spells and items or One Shots on a Time Clock where the effects of high level magic spells and items are lower impact as it's only one day and one game with a few scenes.

Worlds which have bullets eventually involve tanks which are not harmed by bullets.

Worlds which involve high level magic eventually involve elements which reduce the effectiveness of high level magic.

This isn't artificial, it's a pretty natural progression. If you build a big highly dangerous high level dungeon, you will include things to mess with highly dangerous magic which can mess with your dungeon. That's not a problem with high level spells, it's a natural reaction to them.