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

[Crimson Longinus]

DMG optional rules are optional rules.
Feats in 5e are optional rules.
Multiclassing is optional rules
Magic items are optional rules.

Which means you can use them if you think they make your game better. So why wouldn't you if you think they improve things?

A high level 5e fighter cannot cleave through a gang of multiple orcs without optional rules. The math isn't designed for that.

Yes they can. A high level fighter has three or four attacks, and damage that is likely to oneshot a 15 HP orc. So they can probably cleave trough several of them each turn.

 

[Minigiant]

Whose fantasy?

But what do you suggest? Do you want a fighter to deal sixty points of damage per one hit and still have three or even four attacks? Because I'm pretty sure that would be hella broken.

The cleave through foes fantasy.

A DC 10 AOE attack that deal XdY damage or a failed save and nothing of success within the weapons range as an action. X being the fighter's number of attacks +1. Y being the weapon's damage die.

Weak foes will fail the save. Strong foes with shrug it off. And the DM only has to roll d20s and count the rolls under 10.

 

[Oofta]

DMG optional rules are optional rules.
Feats in 5e are optional rules.
Multiclassing is optional rules
Magic items are optional rules.

I said nothing about any of these. I said mob rules were not optional because they are not. It's a way to handle the scenario where a number of low level monsters attack a higher level party. If you don't believe me, read the DMG.

A high level 5e fighter cannot cleave through a gang of multiple orcs without optional rules. The math isn't designed for that.

A high level fighter would kill those low level monsters quite quickly, but no they are not going to do it with one attack roll. What you're expecting out of the rules was never a design goal and I fail to see why it's an issue. There is an optional cleave rule in the DMG that basically if you kill a monster in a single blow the damage can carry over to the next monster within reach. That would be in the Dungeon Master's Workshop chapter which does have optional rules.

So if cleaving through multiple foes with one swing is something you want in your game, there are optional rules to do so.

If you are stating that some optional rules become base rules, we are in agreement.

I think feats, multiclassing and magical items are quite common, if we had access to DndBeyond data like WOTC does we'd have a better idea.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If that was an uncontroversial take, we wouldn't be having these discussions. "Mundane" has aesthetic obligations over and above just labeling things and being done with it, and the hashing out of those obligations is the entire argument.

I was just reminded this was a plus thread, and, yeah, that is the take it's building on.

I have long argued this is true (and I'm more used to a version of this debate where I argue we should just stop having a Fighter at all),

It's certainly true, if off-topic, that the status quo in most versions of D&D simply leaves non-casters with a numeric level they can't live up to, because casters surpass them, and that not having them at all, or not assigning them levels they can't live up to, would be solutions.

But there's nothing about the nature of the non-magical vs the supernatural that demands that. Supernatural powers have no guidelines in reality, so they can arbitrarily be made as weak/restricted as needed to balance them to whatever baseline you establish.

but I've recently been trying a more open-minded stance, and try to figure out what the actual limits of mundanity aesthetically are. So far, I've got something like this set of principles:

1. Avoid creating class-specific rules systems.
2. Amplify universally accessible abilities whenever possible.
3. Avoid creating resource systems, unless you're expending a resource universal to all characters.
4. Avoid action at a distance, outside of ranged attacks.

That sits on top of standard D&D norms, like forward causality of action, and actions being self-contained.

"Mundanity" is still a poor word choice for not-magical or not-supernatural.

But, the aesthetic for it fairly simple, it's taking normal, everyday things - people can jump, a stronger person can jump further - and taking them to the extreme required by the fantasy (be it the level in D&D, or the outlandishness of a tall tale). A really strong person can leap over a castle wall - or across the grand canyon, or whatever. That it's impossible IRL doesn't make it unnatural, supernatural, or magical.

Conversely, the magical or supernatural are all about doing things that are or at least appear, impossible, but, impossible needn't mean powerful. Hatching a hummingbird out of a chicken egg is quite impossible, but it's not going to win you any battles or anything.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes they can. A high level fighter has three or four attacks, and damage that is likely to oneshot a 15 HP orc. So they can probably cleave trough several of them each turn

Again not without optional rules.

I'm not saying don't use the rules.

I'm saying they aren't in the base game but should be. But people keep dancing around agreeing to use that they are using.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The cleave through foes fantasy.

A DC 10 AOE attack that deal XdY damage or a failed save and nothing of success within the weapons range as an action. X being the fighter's number of attacks +1. Y being the weapon's damage die.

Weak foes will fail the save. Strong foes with shrug it off. And the DM only has to roll d20s and count the rolls under 10.

Why is it a save and not an attack roll? Why the DC is flat ten and not based on any of the fighter's statistics? Why does this deal way more damage per hit than the fighter's individual attacks? Why doesn't their strength or magic weapon bonus affect this damage?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again not without optional rules.

What optional rules? The fighter has several attacks, and is likely to kill an orc they hit. Ergo they cleave though several orcs per turn. That the rules do not contain word "cleave" doesn't change that.

 

[nevin]

So if D&D was a different game? What is D&D without any particular rule set attached? I don’t understand what "D&D in general" means.

It obviously means because it's so popular it should be changed to make everyone happy so they can all say it's their game. I'm pretty sure all D&D forums are where people who are happy with thier game go to let other people tell them how broken it is. That's what happens when your the big dog. Everyone hates you, wants to play with you and get you to change to be more like what they want all at the same time.

 

[Pedantic]

I was just reminded this was a plus thread, and, yeah, that is the take it's building on.


It's certainly true, if off-topic, that the status quo in most versions of D&D simply leaves non-casters with a numeric level they can't live up to, because casters surpass them, and that not having them at all, or not assigning them levels they can't live up to, would be solutions.

But there's nothing about the nature of the non-magical vs the supernatural that demands that. Supernatural powers have no guidelines in reality, so they can arbitrarily be made as weak/restricted as needed to balance them to whatever baseline you establish.

Oh, I fundamentally disagree. You can find a years long bibliography scattered across various forums where I continue to assert that supernatural or magical abilities are and must be strictly superior to mundane abilities as a matter of definition, particularly given the design limitations of TTRPGs, but you're right to indicate it's off topic.

"Mundanity" is still a poor word choice for not-magical or not-supernatural.

But, the aesthetic for it fairly simple, it's taking normal, everyday things - people can jump, a stronger person can jump further - and taking them to the extreme required by the fantasy (be it the level in D&D, or the outlandishness of a tall tale). A really strong person can leap over a castle wall - or across the grand canyon, or whatever. That it's impossible IRL doesn't make it unnatural, supernatural, or magical.

Would that were true, but you only have to go back a few posts for this direct counter example:

The post you quoted demonstrates clearly it is not.

Again, it’s not a question of the intrinsic act, it’s a question of the degree to which the act becomes impossible to a normal human.

Running is mundane. Running 21mph is Olympic level athleticism, but still mundane. Running 30mph is faster than any known human has ever run, but could still be considered mundane. Heroic, but not necessarily superhuman. 40MPH and we’re getting into the realms of fantasy…but at just “twice as fast as a fast runner”, it’s arguably still merely “heroic”

Running 200mph unassisted is not mundane. (At least, not for a human.)

Mundane abilities can (and to be appropriate for the higher levels, arguably must) scale above and beyond norms, but cannot do so indefinitely before undermining the aesthetic. The mundane Fighter isn't a color palette for a set of level appropriate abilities, it is a design limitation on those abilities, and a quite tricky one to satisfy.

Conversely, the magical or supernatural are all about doing things that are or at least appear, impossible, but, impossible needn't mean powerful. Hatching a hummingbird out of a chicken egg is quite impossible, but it's not going to win you any battles or anything.

Yeah, that's the whole reason they're easier to design for. You can set whatever arbitrary limits you want for a magic system, and then back justify those mechanical limits as features of the power-source. It's a significantly less restrictive aesthetic, so you simply don't have to work as hard to make it work (and really, it's lots of different aesthetics, like hermetic magic, vs. spirit channeling that get lumped together and deserve more individual attention).

 

[Micah Sweet]

In Flee Mortals, minions do represent something in the fictional world. Two examples are the Pitling and the Blood-Starved Vampire.

The Pitling is the lowest category of demon. Essentially abyssal vermin. They're capable of consuming the soul of a dying creature (making it dangerous to go to 0 HP when they're nearby), and if they succeed they immediately transform from a CR 4 minion into a CR 6 non-minion (a category 2 demon).

The Blood Starved Vampire is a vampire that has gone a year or more without consuming blood. They are driven by their bloodthirst, and must consume scores of humanoids to regain their former glory. They often band together because they are aware that even a single blow can render them unto dust.

With that kind of world building explaining their place in the setting, would that make such minions more acceptable in your eyes?

Sure, if you went to some real effort for it.