D&D 5E The Magical Martial

[ezo]

Yeah, and I just don't get what the difference is. Supernatural, to me, is capable of doing things not possible in this real world of Earth. Your hate and anger giving rise to an undead that hunts down your murderer? That's supernatural. I don't see the difference between doing the supernatural and being supernatural, because supernatural is defined (for me) by actions and what is done.

<snip>

BTW, I'd take martials being able to leap 60 ft, that may be the limit of what is possible to prevent issues in combat, I'm just trying to make my point understood on why I don't see this difference.

That's fair. We just have different views.

Let me put it this way: if I took a human out of the D&D world and brought them to Earth in real life, they would simply be human. None of the supernatural things they could do in their D&D world would be possible here. Their training and special qualities gained from being a PC, NPC, or creature would be gone completely in most cases or insanely reduced in the others.

For instance, while people survive falls from incredible heights, sometimes with only minor injuries!, the fact a high-level D&D PC could survive fall after fall and fully recover with 8 hours of sleep and rest wouldn't fly on Earth. They'd be fortunate to live through one such fall.

Did you ever see the movie Last Action Hero (not one of Arnold's best movies, but it has its charms)? An action-movie character is brought "out of the movie" and into real life. Suddenly, he bleeds and feels pain, gets tired, and things just don't "work" the way he is used to them working in his "action movie universe". He's still a big, strong guy, though, but just not what he was "in the movie".

That is why I say humans in D&D are just humans. They, in and of themselves, are not supernatural or extraordinary compared to humans on Earth. The fact they live in a "fantasy world", can become PCs, etc. and receive the training involved with their class in that fantasy world allows them to do things we would find supernatural.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's fair. We just have different views.

Let me put it this way: if I took a human out of the D&D world and brought them to Earth in real life, they would simply be human. None of the supernatural things they could do in their D&D world would be possible here. Their training and special qualities gained from being a PC, NPC, or creature would be gone completely in most cases or insanely reduced in the others.

For instance, while people survive falls from incredible heights, sometimes with only minor injuries!, the fact a high-level D&D PC could survive fall after fall and fully recover with 8 hours of sleep and rest wouldn't fly on Earth. They'd be fortunate to live through one such fall.

Did you ever see the movie Last Action Hero (not one of Arnold's best movies, but it has its charms)? An action-movie character is brought "out of the movie" and into real life. Suddenly, he bleeds and feels pain, gets tired, and things just don't "work" the way he is used to them working in his "action movie universe". He's still a big, strong guy, though, but just not what he was "in the movie".

That is why I say humans in D&D are just humans. They, in and of themselves, are not supernatural or extraordinary compared to humans on Earth. The fact they live in a "fantasy world", can become PCs, etc. and receive the training involved with their class in that fantasy world allows them to do things we would find supernatural.

But as long as the characters are not brought into the real world like in the Last Action Hero, the distinction doesn't actually matter, so why worry about it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

1e's metaphysics no longer matches 5e's.

Not sure what you're getting at here.

 

[NotAYakk]

The problem with the lack of a supernatural power source for Rogues and Fighters, in my experience is that their abilities barring explicit text saying otherwise in the rules are limited by the DM to be what they imagine a normal human being could do in the real world.

If there is a mechanic saying "with a roll of 7 or higher on a d20 you can hit the dragon and do an average of 72 damage", then that is explicit text that allows the PC to do that. If there is a mechanic saying "falling 500' does 20d6 damage, which you can halve with a reaction", then the PC is allowed to do that.

Meanwhile, if there isn't a mechanic that says "with an athletics check you can pick up the 20' statue and throw it 100'", then you can't do it. Because no human could do it.

The 5e mechanics around picking up and throwing things that do exist don't cover what athletics checks can let you do - it is left vague. Without the athletics check, even a huge-sized (rune knight, growth potion) double-lift capacity (bear totem or equivalent) 27 strength human is limited to a few tonnes, which is far less than a 20' tall stone statue.

There lacks any in-world explanation why the Fighter can hit a 30 tonne dragon and do significant damage to it. Because this in-world explanation is missing, the Fighter cannot leverage that missing in-world explanation to do other wonderous abilities not tied to the explicit mechanics in the game.

The 5e PC has no game text that they can use to convince the DM their PC is capable of super-heroic feats, nor any game text that tell them they should be able to perform those super-heroic feats.

5e completely abandoned players who want that kind of fictional support.

If you look back at 4e, at least the paragon paths and the epic destinies provided some mechanical and fictional support for why a PC should be able to do super-human tasks. Even the skill check rules talked about super-human acts, and the bonuses that high level PCs got brought them up to being able to reliably do those super-human acts.

5e explicitly stripped all of that out.

So we end up with these fighter PCs who are, at many tables, no better than a fit 20 year old athlete at most tasks, except they are inhumanly good at hitting things with pointy sticks, and inhumanly durable, because those two things are mechanically supported.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The problem with the lack of a supernatural power source for Rogues and Fighters, in my experience is that their abilities barring explicit text saying otherwise in the rules are limited by the DM to be what they imagine a normal human being could do in the real world.

If there is a mechanic saying "with a roll of 7 or higher on a d20 you can hit the dragon and do an average of 72 damage", then that is explicit text that allows the PC to do that. If there is a mechanic saying "falling 500' does 20d6 damage, which you can halve with a reaction", then the PC is allowed to do that.

Meanwhile, if there isn't a mechanic that says "with an athletics check you can pick up the 20' statue and throw it 100'", then you can't do it. Because no human could do it.

The 5e mechanics around picking up and throwing things that do exist don't cover what athletics checks can let you do - it is left vague. Without the athletics check, even a huge-sized (rune knight, growth potion) double-lift capacity (bear totem or equivalent) 27 strength human is limited to a few tonnes, which is far less than a 20' tall stone statue.

There lacks any in-world explanation why the Fighter can hit a 30 tonne dragon and do significant damage to it. Because this in-world explanation is missing, the Fighter cannot leverage that missing in-world explanation to do other wonderous abilities not tied to the explicit mechanics in the game.

The 5e PC has no game text that they can use to convince the DM their PC is capable of super-heroic feats, nor any game text that tell them they should be able to perform those super-heroic feats.

5e completely abandoned players who want that kind of fictional support.

If you look back at 4e, at least the paragon paths and the epic destinies provided some mechanical and fictional support for why a PC should be able to do super-human tasks. Even the skill check rules talked about super-human acts, and the bonuses that high level PCs got brought them up to being able to reliably do those super-human acts.

5e explicitly stripped all of that out.

So we end up with these fighter PCs who are, at many tables, no better than a fit 20 year old athlete at most tasks, except they are inhumanly good at hitting things with pointy sticks, and inhumanly durable, because those two things are mechanically supported.

I think this is fair but hints at both the problem and the solution, which is just to give them superhuman abilities.

Just like how the mechanics give them unexplained durability and deadliness..it could give them other things.

The more of these that there are, the less persuasive the "yeah but they're basically just a really fit dude with nothing else going for them" argument becomes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this is fair but hints at both the problem and the solution, which is just to give them superhuman abilities.

Just like how the mechanics give them unexplained durability and deadliness..it could give them other things.

The more of these that there are, the less persuasive the "yeah but they're basically just a really fit dude with nothing else going for them" argument becomes.

I agree. Give them supernatural abilities. I just see no good reason to pretend that's not what they are.

 

[ECMO3]

are those all perhaps, subclasses which explicitly rely on secondary supernatural and magical powers to justify the things they do? hmmm i think they are.

Yes and you can add battlemaster to that list of supernatural subclasses as well.

That said, having a subclass offer such features is fundamentally different than offering through class. Same with races and feats IMO.

I would argue the current fighter class does offer supernatural powers, specifically extra attack when combined with action surge. Being able to swing a greatsword at someone 8 times in 6 seconds is not really possible. Also being able to heal a wound in a few seconds is supernatural.

 

[ECMO3]

Meanwhile, if there isn't a mechanic that says "with an athletics check you can pick up the 20' statue and throw it 100'", then you can't do it. Because no human could do it.

Actually the rules are not vague about this. It is covered under improvised weapons, and you can throw it 60 feet. A DM might rule that it has to be light enough to pick up, but as long as its weight is less than your lifting limit, RAW you can throw it 60 feet. So for a human character with a 20 strength the statue would need to weigh 600lbs or less on a Halfling with a 20 strength it would need to weigh less than 300lbs and on an Orc with a 20 strength it would need to be 1200lbs or less.

Sometimes characters don’t have their weapons and have to attack with whatever is at hand. An improvised weapon includes any object you can wield in one or two hands, such as broken glass, a table leg, a frying pan, a wagon wheel, or a dead goblin. ...... An improvised thrown weapon has a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet."

A lot of DMs might not like that and might not allow it, but that is RAW.

The 5e mechanics around picking up and throwing things that do exist don't cover what athletics checks can let you do - it is left vague.

It does not require an athletic check, it is a specific number based on size and weight. You could as a DM use an optional rule to go beyond that with a check (as it mentions for jumping longer distances). So if my Orc that can throw a 1200 lb statue 60 feet wants to throw it 70 feet or alternatively wants to throw a 1500lb statue 5 feet, either of those could require a check and as DM I would allow it. You could talk to yours as well.

In game though it is not the athletic check that upsets people as much as the damage IME. A fighter wants to pick up a table and throw it at an enemy but wants it to do more than 1d4 damage and wants it to use strength instead of dexterity as the attack and damage modifier.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Yes and you can add battlemaster to that list of supernatural subclasses as well.

That said, having a subclass offer such features is fundamentally different than offering through class. Same with races and feats IMO.

I would argue the current fighter class does offer supernatural powers, specifically extra attack when combined with action surge. Being able to swing a greatsword at someone 8 times in 6 seconds is not really possible.

Yeah no, even if you were to consider battlemaster, extra attack action surge and all the rest of it ‘supernatural’ which I don’t, it would be an entirely different, much lesser grade of supernatural to those listed subclasses, one that is only considered supernatural when in comparison to our own universe, but in the context of their universe barely registers as unusual, like yeah athletes exist, so what?

Also being able to heal a wound in a few seconds is supernatural.

I’m in a few threads right now, is this the one already having the damage isn’t MeatPoints argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah no, even if you were to consider battlemaster, extra attack action surge and all the rest of it ‘supernatural’ which I don’t, it would be an entirely different, much lesser grade of supernatural to those listed subclasses, one that is only considered supernatural when in comparison to our own universe, but in the context of their universe barely registers as unusual, like yeah athletes exist, so what?

I’m in a few threads right now, is this the one already having the damage isn’t MeatPoints argument.

Supernatural in comparison to our universe is IMO the relevant perspective.