D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry, but this one doesn't make sense to me. Aren't the fiction and the narrative one and the same?

I explained my definitions above. Fiction is the in-universe setting, while narrative is making a good story. I like help from the rules for fiction, but don't want it for narrative.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

EKs and ATs are outright casters, with slots and everything. So Fighter (ironically) and Thief are out.
Totem Barbarians are able to cast a handful of naturey spells as rituals, if using rituals doesn't make you a caster, and no non-PH Barbarians sub-class gets slots... that's one.
Monk sub-classes can use Ki to cast spells, it's outright called casting spells, buy it's not slots, if slots make the caster, that's two....

But, really, "All 5e classes can use spells" is a true statement, even before feats, MCing, race or background that might add some sort of casting.

This is strange.

Why does it matter to anyone at all that every class has subclass options that can do magic in the form of spells? Most fighter, Barbarian, and rogue, subclasses don’t. Monks are less mundane but…so is the base class concept so..meh.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Mundanity: The Class

Okay. Let’s roll with that.

First, the Fighter should be Olympic level or better in anything within their wheelhouse.

• A Fighter doing parkour can repeatedly jump the maximum long jump and high jump while ignoring difficult terrain and gaining a climb speed when they dash. Action hero parkour. Assassin’s Creed parkour
• Fighters increase the normal and long range of bows and thrown weapons

Fighter features are legendary, without being magical

• Second Wind recovers a level of exhaustion, regain hp when you spend a SW to boost a d20 test
  • Increase what can be boosted
• Indomitable is level 5, and simply turns the save into a success. After level 11 it can be used to turn any d20 test into a success
• Action Surge can be used to take an additional reaction
• Action Surge can at higher levels be used as legendary actions

Fighters should have new features that simply make their mundanity work for them and make them a bane to magical enemies

• Built in common folk, soldiers, members of martial orders, guards, craftsfolk, basically all regular folk and the lowest rung of nobility (knights), are friendlier to the fighter than to anyone else, given no other inputs that would impact reactions to the PCs. If the PCs are grungy and road weary and the village folk don’t like the look of them, they’re neutral to the fighter PC
• Magic Resistance/Countering - Doesnt have to be literal resistence, just a d4 added to saves vs magical effects and reduce damage from spells by like proficiency or something
• The fighter (and Barbarian tbh) can break magical things with attacks
• Add a feat or something that isn’t gonna be used by many casters, that lets you take an opportunity attack when a spell is cast within your threatened area
• Add fighting styles with level requirements that only fighters (and maybe monks) get in thier class progression
• Add a higher level fighting style that lets the fighter increase reach by 5ft while using a heavy two-handed melee weapon that doesn’t have the reach property (or certain weapons simply gain Reach)
  • Idea: it takes training to use greatswords with the kind of range 5e models with reach weapons, and only someone who has dedicated themselves to armed combat as the fighter does can do it

Add Masteries to Skills, which benefits the rogue more but still.
Oh and make bows use strength or Dex.

Do all that, and you’ve got a high level fighter that can sprint into the face of Orcus and stand toe to toe with him, and can do amazing but ultimately physically possible things out of combat as well.



Edit: to expand on the magic resistence stuff

The idea is that the fighter is unfazed and unimpressed, and just deflects a spell with her sword or shield, steps to the side, shoulder rolls under and out of the space of a fireball, and just keeps coming at you. They return to that old dynamic of “sure wizards are scary, but the biggest threat to wizards isn’t other wizards, it’s the captain of the Kings Guard who is a level 12 Champion Fighter.”

Especially when you have a class that can break a wall of force with their sword, it doesn’t seem odd at all that they just calmly step aside and let the lightning bolt mostly pass them by, fully able to tank the halved damage on a successful save.

And for the second wind idea, the idea there is to make all uses of SW heal you, and add a function that recovers exhaustion or gets rid of a persistent condition.

 

[M_Natas]

Sorry, but this one doesn't make sense to me. Aren't the fiction and the narrative one and the same?

I guess it would be something like ...
The attack action helps you resolve inworld fiction. Does my attack hit or not?
But it doesn't dictate the narrative like an ability that would create a narrative, like a mechanic that would let the player decide what happens in the game world.

Like in Purley narrative games like the Untold board game, the player actively decides the narrative of what happens next. He is not interacting with the world trough a character, he is actively shaping the world like a god/story teller would.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I meant the fighter abilities.

Nothing, obviously.
I mean, technically an EK could cast a spell on himself, that could be dispelled... IDK about echo knights &c

This is strange.

Why does it matter to anyone at all that every class has subclass options that can do magic in the form of spells?

It is strange. 5e is mostly pretty derivative, but, I don't believe its ever been the case before, that every single class makes use of spells. That's almost innovative.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because yeah, the Fighter is the “he’s just a guy. I grew up with him!” class, as long as you take a mundane subclass, and that is a good thing.

The class just shouldn’t be unsatisfying to people who want to play that exact thing without feeling like they are a “sidekick” or whatever just because it’s the Everyman class.

 

[Gammadoodler]

On this point I certainly agree. It's just that it doesn't follow that a Fighter gets to do so.


Here you are demonstrably wrong. There's a solid core of people who object outright to fighters doing anything particularly exceptional. The fighter is often defined by being unexceptionable in that way, and when that was not the case, argument about that was the tip of the spear in the edition wars.

The fighter is defined by being normal. It is not given them to do things other people can't do. At best they just get to do those things a little better. That's the most archetypal thing about it; as soon as you start using other words for "warrior" you get a more of specific concept that's allowed to do more.

As for "should need" you don't really get to tell people about what they should want. Personally, I want the fighter to be killed and replaced with more specific archetypes that can scale appropriately without having to do this; there is nothing interesting about a class defined by its mundanity, and it's a pretty outdated fantasy tradition that separates force of arms from doing magic. Swordsmen coat their own blades in fire now and adventure for blades that cut concepts. "Being good at swords" must expand to mean "and thereby doing sword themed supernatural stuff" if it's going to keep up with wizards that can fly.

Where is it stated that the fighter is defined as being normal?

From the 5e PHB.
"As you build your fighter, think about two related elements of your character's background: Where did you get your combat training, and what set you apart from the mundane warriors around you?"

People make this argument that the fighter is and must be "mr normal guy" and the only evidence I've seen provided for this interpretation seems to always boil down to..

"the word 'magic' isn't ever used in the class description."

I'm not sure that you've demonstrated anything except that we have differing perspectives of the playerbase.

In my experience, most folks spend more time engaging with D&D as a fun, social activity where beer and pretzels may or may not be consumed, and less as an opportunity to engage in rigorous setting criticism. In real-life D&D, I've heard way more..

"Cool, now my character (or your character) can do this cool thing"

and way less..

"Waitaminute how..specifically is my character (or your character) able to do that cool thing"

Perhaps I have a very skewed experience of the hobby or perhaps I've failed to detect a great deal of narrative angst within my fellow D&D-ers, but I'd be very surprised if this is the case.

As for what "most people should need", my perspective is based on what I've observed IRL, that most people have healthy, enjoyable experiences with the game without carefully thinking out the specific justifications for each character mechanic. This seems (to me) to be the game working as intended.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nothing, obviously.
I mean, technically an EK could cast a spell on himself, that could be dispelled... IDK about echo knights &c

It is strange. 5e is mostly pretty derivative, but, I don't believe its ever been the case before, that every single class makes use of spells. That's almost an innovative.

No. Please don’t try to twist my words as if they support your position when you know they don’t.

It is strange to care at all that there are Spellcasting fighter subclasses, while playing a subclass that doesn’t cast spells.

Previous iterations don’t have subclasses like 5e does. They might have something a pedant could argue is similar by some technicality, or is called the same name, but they don’t do what 5e subclasses do.

The reason that I don’t accept the argument made by someone else that subclass features don’t count as the class supporting something is that the character isn’t complete before getting thier subclass.

The character really is Race/Class/Background/Subclass, so if a fighter subclass makes the character good at socializing, the fighter class now supports that. It also supports both Spellcasting and complete unmitigated mundanity, because it has subclasses that do both.

As an aside: It casts spells fairly poorly, which is why I push back hard against any idea in ranger threads of making the base class have no spells and leaving Spellcasting to the subclasses. That, and the fact that the class would almost certainly end up with one Spellcasting subclass that has Spellcasting as its identity, rather than being a meaningful ranger concept that has spells in thier toolkit. OTOH, using spell slots to fuel and thus limit a feature set that aren’t spells, aren’t magic, have no components, work just fine in anti-magic zones, etc, would allow the Ranger to support both casting and non-casting characters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is strange to care at all that there are Spellcasting fighter subclasses, while playing a subclass that doesn’t cast spells..

It might be. But that's after the fact. What stands out is 12 classes and something like 40 sub-classes to choose from, 0 and 5-6 of them, respectively don't use spells.

Contrast that with 4/10 classes in the 4e PH1, 4/11 3e, 2/8 2e, 4/10 1e, & 1/3 at 0e launch.
Sure, casters have always been the majority, but going all the way, thats a modest little first

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It might be. But that's after the fact. What stands out is 12 classes and something like 40 sub-classes to choose from, 0 and 5-6 of them, respectively don't use spells.

Contrast that with 4/10 classes in the 4e PH1, 4/11 3e, 2/8 2e, 4/10 1e, & 1/3 at 0e launch.
Sure, casters have always been the majority, but going all the way, thats a modest little first

This is the only place I have ever, in a decade, heard anyone talk about it like it matters. I’m not sure I buy evem the claim that it offered…