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

[Hussar]

To what? If you tell me rogues learn to shape shadows, I can stay coming up with powers. If you tell me they become master mesmerists, I'll come up with different powers, if you tell me they master balance and grace until they dance up walls or learn the real thieves cant that charms locks and hearts alike, there's different abilities. The next step is a product of the archetype.

Fair enough. So, let's go there. Presume that there is some sort of acceptable writeup for whatever flavor of mythical level character you'd like to see, and let's see the actual mechanics of that mythical character.

See, me? I'm a HUUUGE fan of exploding dice and lots of die rolling. My mythical warrior would get a power, somewhere in the high levels, where he just continues making attacks until he misses or there's nothing left to kill. You don't get X attacks per round. You get to attack until you miss or run out of targets. To me? That's a mythic level warrior. Maybe limit it to Proficiency bonus/day. I could live with that.

The warrior attacks spells that have concentration. The AC is equal to the casters Save DC. The attack deals no actual damage but triggers a Concentration check equal to either 10 or half the damage the warrior would have dealt on a hit, whichever is higher.

The warrior has a Proficiency Bonus number of times per day that he just succeeds on a check. If he wants to leap a chasm? He succeeds.

But, then again, I'm pretty simple. I'm sure others could come up with more interesting stuff.

 

[Gorck]

Elan?

Thats like having superpowers because of "gumption" or "grit" or "spunk".

Q. What is your origin story?
A. A sense of fashion.

IIRC, “grit” was used in Pathfinder for the Gunslinger mechanics (similar to the Battlemaster’s Superiority Dice). Matt Mercer even ported it over for Percy’s Gunslinger subclass when CR converted to 5e. I wouldn’t mind if WotC borrowed that for new Fighter mechanics. They might need to change it from “grit” to something like “determination”, but all this “grit and determination and heart” start to sound like hockey talk mumbo jumbo.

 

[HammerMan]

Because we all accept that the lore is going to be rewritten, that it is literally just a word or two away from being fine because the world is explicitly magical and full or magical people...

And about every page or so your or someone else we ALREADY explained all this to and ALREADY gave examples of the narratives allowing it and ALREADY had this entire discussion with starts asking what the narrative justification is and why we won't give a narrative justification.

Because we can't just justify it once, or twice, but it must be every few pages that we re-justify the thing we are already justifying. That's the problem with your insistence on demanding that we justify it again.

Is this what people call sea lioning? I don’t keep up completely with modern phrase ing but someone in another thread says that is when you keep asking questions to derail a conversation

 

[HammerMan]

Jurassic Park is a good example of hard scifi. It is factually possible to clone ancient dinosaur DNA. (The trick is recovering enough material, such as from partially preserved bone marrow.) There probably are people who would make a safari theme park out of it. It really can happen.

Exactly the way they recover the DNA might as well be magic. The way the clowning works with super fast growth to adult knight as well be magic.

 

[HammerMan]

mana or magic

warrior mana is a pasfic islands. We’re a warrior or athlete uses some inner Str to rise above.

 

[James Gasik]

Honestly, if anyone has seen it, I'd be happy with a Fighter like the Bushi from Adventures in Rokugan. They have stances and gain a resource each turn that they can use on maneuvers or save up for a more powerful move in a later turn.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Honestly, if anyone has seen it, I'd be happy with a Fighter like the Bushi from Adventures in Rokugan. They have stances and gain a resource each turn that they can use on maneuvers or save up for a more powerful move in a later turn.

fighters getting one free battlemaster dice each turn (doesn't stack, use it or loose it) would be a nice addition to just letting them do more in fights (with battlemasters themselves having their additional stash of dice to use)

i've already mentioned this upthread but AoE basic weapon attacks is something i'd like to see for fighters

naturally learning more fighting styles is a must IMO, it's rediculous that most fighters will only ever pick up one fighting style in 20 levels (barring multiclassing or feats)
given a bit of thought i feel like fighting styles could be developed to have a corresponding stance that has to be actively applied in addition to their passive effects

an ability i devised myself that i'd like them to see would be 'boot camp' being able to get trained or train someone else to be temporarily proficient in a skill over the course of a short/long rest

being able to throw weapons (ones that don't naturally have the thrown property)

most of these aren't really 'mythic fighter tier abilities' but they're still abilities i think a mythic fighter should still be more than capable of

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're mixing up two different things here. There's any number of reasonably scaling martial archetypes that provide sufficient utility, literally hundreds of options. It isn't important what justification you provide for superhuman ability, but it's vitally important you pick one.

You can do some of that in the subclass, but most of it has to come in the main body if you want everybody to have the effects you need.

You just have to actually pick one and use it. It's not sufficient to say "any of those work." If you're going with "runs on legend" then you provide a series of effects based on maintaining extraordinary tales. If you do channeling ancient beast spirits or the secret souls of swords, you do different stuff. Literally any of those narratives works, the problem is that the core idea of "Fighter" can't stand on its own, because it isn't any of those things, so tell me what archetype you're doing and we can puzzle out reasonable effects that get you up to flight and existing in places made entirely of fire and so on.

It's a much harder route to try and redefine Fighter itself into something usable, and probably starts with a setting wide metaphysics that universalizes how PCs acquire power.

This is what I'm saying. You just have to pick one, and then start building/rebuilding the class with that narrative in mind. "Anything will work" does not actually work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, can we not just take it as read that there will be some sort of narrative justification and move on?

Or have we finally found something we can keep harping on endlessly until conversation gets shut down?

Which one do you want to use? Once you pick one, it informs how the class is built and what abilities it can logically have. You can't just say, "there will be  something, but it doesn't matter what". That's the same as not offering any narrative at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They aren't normal. We've established this.

Not according to the current text.