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

[Gammadoodler]

I would want an explanation for all those things, not that its likely to happen.

To answer your fireball questions:

1. Perhaps the Elemental Plane of Fire?

2. Sympathetic/thematic connection, like the words and gestures.

3. The strength of the magical connection affects the dimensions, as do the exact words and gestures used.

4. It shouldn't work under those conditions, and having it do so is a problem with the rules.

5. It should be possible to screw it up, and having it not be possible is a problem with the rules.

6. Casters have exhaustively studied the exact words, gestures and materials needed for the spell effect (or had them impressed into their minds by a deity or patron), so they know what to do to cast the spell. Those who haven't done those things, can't.

So I app

These answers come from my setting.


The ether of the Ethereal Plane is the fifth element, also called quintessence. It is "spirit" as a substance. Ether is the stuff that spirit worlds of Feywild and Shadowfell are made out of. Ether is remarkable because it is a physical but immaterial force. Yet ultimately, matter itself is made out of involuting fundamental forces.

The ether is the weave, the responsive medium of magic. The ether can be both the natural force of gravity and the magical force of Telekinesis.

There are four states of matter, namely four elements: earthy solid, watery liquid, airy gas, and fiery plasma. (Plasma is what the sun and lightning are made of, and is sometimes called heavenly fire.) It is possible to magically form matter out of ether.

The Fireball spell shapes fire out of ether.


There are different kinds of material components. All of them work according to sympathetic magic, where like affects like. A Divine holy symbol is a linguistic symbol, where the concept shapes the weave.

An Arcane material component works like protoscience, where different objects of nature have affinity with different types behaviors. Thus influencing the object can induce the related influence. For example, in reallife ancient Roman magic, an agate stone with encircling rings seemed like it was an entrapping something, thus agate stones could be used medically to stop scorpion poison from spreading. Similarly, an amethyst stone appears as wine freezing in place, thus can be used to prevent the intoxication after ingesting alcohol. The name a-methystos, literally means "not drunk" in Greek. And so on, Arcane magic is figuring out which things of nature produce which desirable effects. A magic wand is like an Arcane sophisticated high-tech equipment.

The listed material components for the Fireball spell are bat guano and sulphur. Both are Arcane objects of nature that have affinity with the element of Fire, as fuel and volcanism respectively.


The Fireball is an explosion of fire, blasting outward from central point of ignition.


Not sure, but two explanations are: the Water becomes hot steam, or the sudden Fire pushes the water out of the way similar to an underwater blowtorch.

In a vacuum the fire is momentarily present before it disperses.


Disturbing Arcane material components is analogous to disturbing the chemicals during a chemical reaction.

Not sure what you mean by the second question, but perhaps some people are more knowledgeable about chemicals and know which chemicals to disturb.


The narrative is there in the D&D tradition, even if it is more like echoes via inspirations from various earlier fantasy novels, and occasionally from reallife grimoires that describe how to cast spells.

So the game does not supply these. You do. This is equally possible with fantastic martial abilities without codifying it it the game.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

WOTC own data.

Classes played....
Barbarian 8%
Fighter 13%
Rogue 11%
Cleric 8%
Bard 7%
Monk 7%
Sorcerer 7%
Warlock 9%
Druid 6%
Ranger 7%
Wizard 8%

I think anyone wanting to redesign any class is going to have to accept most of them are played by quite a few people who are very happy with them as they are. Note the current unplayable broken useless Fighter is the most played class. It's either not as borked as you think or people like borked classes. either way continue to whistle in the wind for WOTC to officially fix anything as long as numbers look like this.

Of course you need more information to interpret this. If you made decisions based on something like this without digging in, you would probably make a lot of uniformed decisions.

I think they also have data that says most games are played at lower levels. The Fighter is much closer/better relative to other classes at lower levels. Could this be a part of these numbers?

This tells us nothing about how an addition of a separate mythic martial class would fare. Perhaps if there was mythic martial class, it would cannibalize the Fighter numbers to 2%? You know, like the iphone. Most people were pretty happy with their flip phone at the time.

 

[nevin]

It has it's flaws but I think it's definitely worth learning and playing a bit even if you don't end up using it as your main system. It has a lot of neat ideas, some of which aren't immediately evident on a read. Some things:

1) three action economy -- besides 3rd action to do something useful mentioned it also makes movement important. You can move away from a big monster and although the monster can often move to reach you next turn, they can't do their big three action attack anymore. Opportunity attacks exist but only a subset of monsters have them.

2) most of the class power is baked into the class itself and can't be traded away. Lots of customization but the swapable abilities and customization tend to add breadth vs. more power

3) There are different recharge mechanisms but seems less detrimental. Would have to think about why this is.

I think it would somewhat satisfy the "I want my Fighter to be a little better relatively" crowd. It doesn't really put them on par with spellcasters at higher level but there are a few ways to give them some added utility -- medicine revival, etc.

5e Spellcasters may or may not be happy, especially at lower levels as support is the most effective use of spells then.

It's a bit daunting to initially dig into but the system has a lot of key words, standardization, etc. so once you spend a little time it is easier to understand new things and pretty easy to play.

If you believe magic in dnd is overpowered and love tactical thinking to the point that you punish players for not working like a precision military team, and like a game that refuses to let magic be large and powerful, you'll love it. . It made the game much easier for DM's by doing away with rule 0. A lot of people like it. It is very well designed. Just not very flexible if you want to change things.

 

[Incenjucar]

Perfection cannot be reached, but better is worth striving for, or we'd still be playing Chainmail.

 

[nevin]

Of course you need more information to interpret this. If you made decisions based on something like this without digging in, you would probably make a lot of uniformed decisions.

I think they also have data that says most games are played at lower levels. The Fighter is much closer/better relative to other classes at lower levels. Could this be a part of these numbers?

This tells us nothing about how an addition of a separate mythic martial class would fare. Perhaps if there was mythic martial class, it would cannibalize the Fighter numbers to 2%? You know, like the iphone. Most people were pretty happy with their flip phone at the time.

Might means nothing. Data means something. yes Games have always been played mostly to level 10ish in all editions since 1e. mainly because it takes time to get that far, and a lot of DM's are not flexible enough or experienced enough to handle the game at that point. I've also dealt with DM's that are such control freaks that High level games make them neurotic. I've had DM's try to run "High Level" games by changing the rules and nerfing all high level abilities. IT's hard and stressful to run high level games. Takes lots of time and planning. A lot of People with the right skillsets to do it don't have the time. I don't see anything changing any of that ever. There is also a huge disconnect between what Players want at high level and what DM's often want. When you get into high level play you are now messing with the DM's world at a fundamental level. Messing with thier favorite NPC's, gods and plotlines. I've even seen really good DM's unintentionally become horribly unfair because of favoritism to certain things in thier game world they didn't want changed and blow thier game's up.

High level is hard. Especially for the DM that has thier own game world that they've spent years fine tuning. High level players rip the guitar strings off in the first act.

 

[Remathilis]

So I app

So the game does not supply these. You do. This is equally possible with fantastic martial abilities without codifying it it the game.

Here is a challenge: explain to me the difference between a bard, sorcerer, wizard and warlock. Do not mention any game mechanics.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

There are zero arguments against a new class that is not as powerful. That is my point. It is never about not as powerful. It is always about more powerful. The ability to take without conceding. Here are a few examples:

So the argument against a class that is the same power. There isn't one. The problem is - that is never the real argument.

It's because you are assuming the Fighter is already as powerful at the Wizard and saying you have to take something away from the Fighter to get something more.

The whole premise is that the Fighter isn't as powerful. Start with the Wizard or Warlock chasis and remove and add. If you think the Fighter is just as good then you won't have a problem doing this.

I've said this before but imagine someone who has read and seen all fantasy media except for rpgs and is an expert board game designer and engineer. You put the D&D rules minus the classes in front of the them, including the monsters. You show them the Wizard class and it's spells only. You say-- your job is to design a martial class that is no more powerful or versatile than the Wizard from levels 1-20 and meant to be a more or less equally contributing adventuring companion.

Ok, go.

You think this person is going to design the current champion or battlemaster Fighter? The chances seem zero.

 

[Yaarel]

I reached level 20 as a champion. A year long campaign. We played every level. We had 8 players and a DM. I noticed no difference in my PC's ability to do cool stuff compared to the warlock, cleric, ranger, monk, wizard, or 2 druids. So, not everyone that reaches higher levels is complaining.
But it is a problem at your table. Can I ask what level you noticed it and what was the party composition?

I have seen the complaints from Fighter players ever since I learned to play D&D.

But when I am player, I almost always play some form of fullcaster.

However, I "noticed" or rather understood the problem when carefully discerning which spell is more powerful than which other spell. I got a decent sense of spells in the highest tiers, and what they do − and what they should be doing at those high tiers.

That is when I realized, Fighter mechanics arent even in the game.

Fighters are all about evading damage, taking damage, and dealing damage during a combat encounter. But they often have little or no competence to deal with noncombat encounters, especially high tier challenges that normally involve heavy magic.

Many D&D games (including our own) are combat-centric. So much of the time, the Fighter contributes fully. But there are times when the adventure switches to noncombat, and the Fighter is at a loss. At some tables, most of the adventure might be noncombat.

 

[Emberashh]

Perfection cannot be reached, but better is worth striving for, or we'd still be playing Chainmail.

Better isn't always actually "better", however. Its subjective and in game design certain routes taken can have a lot of unintended consequences.

For instance, making magic users easier to access and use is a good idea in general for a game compared to what we had before.

However, in the execution of that idea we ended up here with busted demigod mages that are, regardless of how severe we consider the problem, impacting the game negatively.

Its not uncommon for one of the basic bits of advice for homebrewing is to keep your changes small, because larger changes can introduce problems predictable and unpredictable.

If you jack up martials you will have to completely rewrite all monsters; thats not going to be negotiable unless they decide to just foist all the balancing problems onto DMs to figure out. (Which means nothing actually changes)

And thats without even getting into fixing the non-combat game. Exploration is already devalued mechanically as it is and needs a serious overhaul. Jacked up martials are going to require that overhaul be even more drastic, and that in turn means even more consequences can come up as a result.

Thats why a complete rewrite (new edition) is a more ideal way to address 5e's problems if you're not going to commit to invalidating what people already own. A new edition means 5e can just be its own thing, and you can start over and build up the system properly.

And of course it can't be ignored that for WOTC to take that action would be their third go-around with doing exactly that, and their track records leaves a lot to be desired for how that'd turn out.

But it doesn't change that one way or another, to fix 5e goes deeper than adding or changing a class or two. Way deeper, in fact.

Ive said it before but if all you did was add a new class or jacked up all the Martials, the disparity would still fundamentally exist, because it isn't only being caused by just class design.

 

[James Gasik]

The only issue I could see (if we're using the model of exposure to x = y power) is the idea that it's based around specific triggers that may or may not happen in game. Would that thusly mean the PC is barred from taking that power?

For example: if the fighter wants to take bladeproof skin but has to be exposed to stoneskin and nobody has or can cast it on them, is he forbidden from taking it? Does the DM rig a situation where an NPC or magic item can cast it on them? Would their powers be limited by the foes they fight and allies thru keep? Or do we have it away again as "somewhere in the world a wizard cast stoneskin and the magical particles drifted on the wind until they touched the fighter"? (Or better: I don't have to explain it, I just get damage reduction).

Maybe include it in your character's backstory?