The ability to reach your opponents is a basic one, and no class should have to feel thankful because some high level ability "grants" them this ability at high level.
No, I don't think being able to reach your opponent at will is a basic ability. At all. I think having light, extremely mobile classes adds an interesting option. Slower classes, typically heavily armed/armoured classes
occasionally having to deal with the consequences and not just advantages of being big and tanky is a feature, not a flaw.
Every martial class needs to move about the battlefield, not just monks.
Yes. But not as well or better than monks, or why play a monk?
Edit: in another thread, I've just suggested that the play test monk ability, deflect attack, is OP and should be nerfed. Why? Because it makes monks too tanky, and steps on the toes of fighters and other classes. A monk should be able to take a hit, but not better than a fighter or barbarian.
IMO, it's important that classes have strengths and weaknesses.
A fighter that can't actually reach the monster is useless. (Or drives everybody to ranged builds, which is not a great solution either)
Been playing for decades. Yet to see a fight where a fighter couldn't get into the battle, at all, barring some unfortunate circumstance like falling into a trap, etc.. Occasionally they have to spend their action on extra movement, or think tactically. As a DM building encounters, I often will set up encounters that will play to the party's abilities in different ways, and if the party has some very mobile characters, I will sometimes build an encounter that lets them exploit that ability, while the fighter charges into the big monster threatening the rest of the party, or whatever.
So. Since the game makes it fairly cheap to get things like Misty Step, if you get your way and gatekeeps even the basic stuff from non-specialists... this simply means I will get hold of Misty Step (or similar) through a feat or some other source.
Get my way? The game is designed with certain class advantages and limitations. Including the ability to multi-class or use a feat (of which fighters have a surplus) and take misty step, if you think it's that important. So it seems like you've already got a solution to your problem.
But that just means the notion that magic is the solution to everything gets entrenched. Much better is to be exceedingly generous in your interpretation of the core movement rules, and never bitch about one feet here or there. There is NO practical difference between being able to jump 16 or 18 feet. What the game asks you to do is jump 20, 30, 40 or even longer and higher. And if the movement rules won't let you do that, magic easily does.
The distance you can jump based on your strength is automatic; you don't have to roll for it. You only have to roll when you exceed that distance. And yeah, I'm going to enforce that rule, because you have to start somewhere. If it's just a foot or two it's going to be an easy DC, but natural 1s happen (and are often a highlight of the game).
But if you prefer to be exceedingly generous to the point of letting fighters jump 60 feet (which also doubles their basic movement allotment), then I say you do you. I'd be a bit bummed if I was the monk in the party and kind of wondering what the point of my character was, but it's your game.
Remember, being able to jump 16 feet all day long is not nearly as useful as being able to jump 60 feet once a day.
Agreed. That's why monks have to use resources to do that kind of thing.
Since the end analysis is that any decently experienced player worth his salt will still get hold of the abilities he needs to reach the monster.
No. In my experience, most players enjoy playing within their class and don't get upset that their class includes both advantages and disadvantages. This does not mean they are not "decent" players. Perhaps they have different priorities than you.
Let the Rogue move (jump, climb) using Acrobatics. And let Athletics and Acrobatics be actually impressive, commensurate with what a high level character should be able to do.
What you think is impressive and what someone else thinks is impressive might be different. Impressive is a subjective quality.
The idea that only Monks should be able to do that is deeply problematic.
No, it's actually not. That's what class identity is, IMO. Is the idea that only fighters should get to action surge deeply problematic? BTW, action surge can be used to double the fighter's movement for the turn, so there's another option if they need to get somewhere.
The idea that Monks should be grateful simply because they can move is even more problematic.
Can we drop the hyperbole? And a straw man, like I suggested that monks should be grateful for being allowed to move. It's not helpful. It's also insulting, and I'm not going to bother having discussions with you if you persist.
Last time I checked, every single class gets to move. Monks and barbarians have extra movement built into their design. Yes, it's a feature.
The game is just way too easy to game here. Nobody plays a slow plate dwarf in 5E, when you can make other choices that does not compromise your damage output too much and gets you really useful movement capabilities.
Okay, then if that's how you feel I'm not sure what the problem is. I have had
many players play dwarf fighters, paladins, and clerics in plate and they seemed to enjoy it, but if it's not for you then that's okay.
Remember, any round that slow Dwarf doesn't reach the monster is a lost round. You are much better off being mobile. Even if your DPR is slightly lowered, actually being able to deliver your DPR is a fundamental key to creating an effective character.
Actually, I don't agree that every round you don't reach the monster is necessarily a lost round. Sometimes your round is spent maneuvering, using an object, all kinds of things. That's like saying that every round a monster makes its saving throw is a lost round for the wizard. And if the reason that you didn't reach the monster is because you wanted to play a heavy armour class, then you made a calculated trade-off.
I also don't agree that you are automatically better off being mobile. For example, when I played a barbarian, I would sometimes have him wear heavy armour despite the cost to his mobility, because I felt the extra AC was worth it in that situation. And there are plenty of times when my monk's mobility was wasted because it would have been suicidal for her to rush into the middle of the enemy on her own. In that situation, she'd have been better off being slower and wearing heavy armour, but that's not what the class is about, and I knew that when I made her.
Abilities like Misty Step are soo useful. They're not needed in every fight, but they are likely a gamechanger (in the character's ability to actually dish out damage) in one fight every session.
Seriously, you should use one of the methods you describe above to get
misty step. You mention it a lot. I don't think it's all that amazing, but it can certainly be great on occasion.
Trying to restrict regular movement to some notion of real-life is just so very misguided, in the context of 5E. The only thing that accomplishes is driving martials into the arms of magic abilities.
For me, it's not about "real life," and again I ask you to please stop speaking for me. For me it's about class identity and balance. And I don't find, as a very experienced DM, that martial classes are all multi-classing to get magical abilities. Or using feats. The barbarian in my main home game just multi-classed, though. Into fighter.
Conversely, allowing martials to perform actually awesome feats of movement doesn't impact balance nearly as much as you think, since decently minmaxed martials will move about at will anyway.
Again, I've got more than four decades of experience and I feel differently. I'm not seeing fighters struggling. At all. I consider them one of the stronger classes in 5e. Certainly when it comes to combat encounters. Out of combat, it sort of depends on how they are built.
The only choice is between "magic is the solution to everything" and... allowing martials to be awesome without magic.
No. That's a false dichotomy. Martial classes are awesome without magic, IMO. And presenting only two possible solutions to a problem usually seems like a failure of imagination.
Monks get to be specialists in lots of ways, but don't even begin to think "actually reaching the monster" is something only Monks should be able to do, because that's just not the reality of the game.
Yeah, you really frequently tell other people what they are thinking. And then represent them like idiots. It doesn't feel great. Stop.
