D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[Sacrosanct]

So back to the point, I'm seeing some common repeated asks:

• Some sort of presence factor. An aura of intimidation or influence.
• Auto-kill of low level mooks, and more attacks per round against them.
• Best at damage with weapons and protection from armor, including an ability to deflect any attack (limited resource) and to bypass resistances and immunities.
• Exceptional feats of athleticism beyond what normal people do (AKA: Captain America)

There are more of course, but these seem to be the commonly referenced ones. Despite literature and lore tying magical items to non-deity heroes in nearly every case, the majority feels that shouldn't be part of the expectation, but if there are magical items, fighters should get the most options (perhaps attuning to more than 3?).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How many foes does Conan decapitate. Was he using a Vorpal/Sharpness sword every time?

There's nothing explicitly magical about one-shotting/decapitating a foe.

As I said upthread:

If we’re talking “mundane” warriors, killing with one blow may be a thing…depending on what’s getting killed. There’s an ill-defined line between mundane one-shotting and supernaturally doing likewise.

Conan killing “mooks”- possibly even multiples- with a single swing is fine. But- barring a prophecy or curse- the more powerful the foe, the less likely the probability of one-shotting it without supernatural boons of some kind.

 

[Fanaelialae]

As I said upthread:

Conan killing “mooks”- possibly even multiples- with a single swing is fine. But- barring a prophecy or curse- the more powerful the foe, the less likely the probability of one-shotting it without supernatural boons of some kind.

That's basically just the "it's always worked this way" argument. Unless all you mean is that a fighter shouldn't be able to one-shot the Tarrasque (neither should a mage IMO). Then, sure, we're in agreement. IMO, the fighter arguably shouldn't be able to decapitate the Tarrasque with a vorpal sword either. But I think that anything you could reasonably decapitate with a vorpal sword probably ought to be possible without one.

Again, I bring up Worlds Without Number and its execution attack. It's a very well regarded game. I've never heard anyone complain that the execution attack is unrealistic and ought to only be possible via magic. Does the execution attack have limitations? Of course. A decapitating attack in D&D would most likely have limits as well. And perhaps you could use magic to stretch those limits to normally implausible lengths. However, I've always thought it somewhat silly that it's impossible to decapitate someone in D&D without resorting to either fiat or magic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But- barring a prophecy or curse- the more powerful the foe, the less likely the probability of one-shotting it without supernatural boons of some kind.

In genre, even a major foe may fall to a single mortal wound, and, really, the whittling you see in D&D is uncommon, and usually happens to the hero, as a way of illustrating long battles, great bravery & fortitude, etc.
Take hp as very abstract (which, amusingly, some folks aren't willing to do) and it can still be OK: all those hp-whittling hits just don't draw blood or even make contact. But, at that point, really, why is magic an exception? Heroes and important supporting cast and villains are plot-armored against magic, too, in genre.

In TSR D&D, hit points and saving throws were separate forms of plot armor, high level characters (and their foes) had scads of hp, and good saving throws. As you leveled, attacks got more likely to hit, but you needed more hits to whittle away the targets hp, while all-or-nothing saves got easier and easier to make - ironically making powerful 'SoD' spells seem/feel ineffectual/frustrating.
3e came along and designed saving throws to fail on more like the same order as attacks hitting - enough to not be frustrating - but left in SoDs... and then save DCs got optimized... Not only could it turn the game into rocket tag, even when saves weren't that out of hand, the fact that all the hp damage contributed by the rest of the party essentially meant nothing when an SoD was failed tended to undercut the cooperative game, a bit.
4e fixed that by having basically all attacks do hp damage, with any conditions on a hit, rather than having SoDs.
5e didn't entirely unwind that solution, tho it brought back the 3e redundancy of magical attacks forcing saves that fail around as often as attacks hit, there's not much in the way of outright SoDs.

 

[Oofta]

When it comes to killing enemies in a single blow, why do you need any special rules? A standard guard in D&D has 11 HP, someone like Conan swinging a 2-handed sword probably doesn't even need to take advantage of GWM extra damage.

For multiples, I just view that as a narrative implementation of multiple attacks per round, or perhaps using the Cleave rules from the 2024 edition playtest rules.

What I wouldn't want is the ability to take out multiple enemies with a single swing no matter how challenging those opponents are supposed to be. I still want tough monsters, not monsters that just get their heads lopped off because of a lucky roll.

 

[Quickleaf]

So back to the point, I'm seeing some common repeated asks:

• Some sort of presence factor. An aura of intimidation or influence.
• Auto-kill of low level mooks, and more attacks per round against them.
• Best at damage with weapons and protection from armor, including an ability to deflect any attack (limited resource) and to bypass resistances and immunities.
• Exceptional feats of athleticism beyond what normal people do (AKA: Captain America)

There are more of course, but these seem to be the commonly referenced ones. Despite literature and lore tying magical items to non-deity heroes in nearly every case, the majority feels that shouldn't be part of the expectation, but if there are magical items, fighters should get the most options (perhaps attuning to more than 3?).

Some quick thoughts if this is going to become a design project...

Presence/Fear: This was in the OD&D fighter. EDIT: I wrote about this in my old notes, but can't find the line in the OD&D pdfs (they're terribly organized ofc).

Auto-Kill Mooks: The AD&D idea can be roughly equated to the maths of Action Surge. I've got those numbers somewhere from my own tinkering.

Damage and Armor: There's a game called Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells in which armor downgrades the damage die you take (e.g. d8 longsword might only deal d6 vs. leather or d4 vs chain), so that might be a source of design inspiration. Could easily go in other direction, i.e. in fighter's hands or when fighter uses ability X or when fighter is in situation Y, d8 longsword deals d10 damage.

Parry: AD&D fighter kits, IIRC, had a parry system where you rolled to meet or beat attacker's attack roll. Something like that where if you succeed, then you parry it all, and expend resource Z. But if you don't succeed, then no resource Z expended. That might be a more moderate gamist implementation instead of auto-parry, depending on design goals.

EDIT: There's also a life expectancy issue with Parry in 5e where higher level monsters more often rely on Multiattack, so you start getting less mileage from Parrying one attack, when the monster has 3 or 4 attacks going on. For example, one solution might be a feature where if you successfully Parry then any subsequent attacks from that enemy that turn have disadvantage against you.

Athleticism: One thing to consider is how the revised ranger stuff seems to be leaning towards the ranger as the Climb/Swim guy. And monk is already the Fast Movement guy. So defining the fighter's version of athleticism as distinct from these is part of the design challenge (if you care about it being distinct).

Magic Items: The thing I've seen players on ENWorld mention frequently is fighters with "weapons of power" that grow with them... So it's less "more attunement slots" and more "do more with the attuned weapon I have than others can do." IIRC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's basically just the "it's always worked this way" argument. Unless all you mean is that a fighter shouldn't be able to one-shot the Tarrasque (neither should a mage IMO). Then, sure, we're in agreement. IMO, the fighter arguably shouldn't be able to decapitate the Tarrasque with a vorpal sword either. But I think that anything you could reasonably decapitate with a vorpal sword probably ought to be possible without one.

Again, I bring up Worlds Without Number and its execution attack. It's a very well regarded game. I've never heard anyone complain that the execution attack is unrealistic and ought to only be possible via magic. Does the execution attack have limitations? Of course. A decapitating attack in D&D would most likely have limits as well. And perhaps you could use magic to stretch those limits to normally implausible lengths. However, I've always thought it somewhat silly that it's impossible to decapitate someone in D&D without resorting to either fiat or magic.

Hey, it's impossible to break a bone in 5e, or in fact suffer injury in any way that lasts longer than 24 hours and isn't death.

5e is a weird game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hey, it's impossible to break a bone in 5e,

There's no basic mechanic that does so in any other edition that I'm aware of. You fall 100', you take hp damage. You get hit in the knee with a giant's warhammer, take hp damage.

or in fact suffer injury in any way that lasts longer than 24 hours and isn't death.

Heck, Raise Dead takes less than 24hrs to cast.

5e is a weird game.

D&D has always been a weird game. ;P We've just had more time to get used to the weirdness a given edition the longer it's been since it came out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's basically just the "it's always worked this way" argument.

No it isn’t. I’m distinguishing between “mundane” and “supernatural”- a crucial element of this discussion.

Going back to Beowulf to illustrate: As mentioned, he held his breath underwater for hours. Swimming in armor. Etc.

Professional breath hold diver Budimir Šobat's world record of 24 minutes and 37 seconds holding his breath underwater. He wasn’t swimming around vigorously in armor while doing so.

What Beowulf did was so far beyond human capabilities that it must be supernatural.

Back to one-shorting, beheadings, etc.

There’s clearly a hyped-up level of combat mayhem a mundane but heroic fighter should be able to deliver. But after a certain, as-yet-undefined point, certain combat feats are so far beyond the mundane that they are by definition supernatural.

Conan swinging a 3’ sword in an arc and beheading all within arm’s reach is hyped up, but cinematically mundane. If, OTOH, he swings his 3’ sword and decapitates everyone within 15’ of him, we’re no longer in the realm of mundane warriors.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Conan swinging a 3’ sword in an arc and beheading all within arm’s reach is hyped up, but cinematically mundane. If, OTOH, he swings his 3’ sword and decapitates everyone within 15’ of him, we’re no longer in the realm of mundane warriors.

Yes, but can he cut through a ship with a sword in one hit?

*Edit: in seriousness, I think one of the difficulties in defining the Mundane vs Supernatural is the sliding scale. If one consideres cutting through a ship is just barely supernatural and fitting of a high level "mundane" fighter, cutting the heads of everyone within 15 feet probably sounds really mundane.