D&D (2024) Martial/Caster fix.

[Corinnguard]

You are overcomplicating this thing something fierce.

We already have a standard for basic. The champion. We can use that as a starting point.

I didn't realize that I was making more of what Minigiant was trying to say. He wasn't pointing to a particular subclass. To me, it sounded like he meant the martials in general.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I didn't realize that I was making more of what Minigiant was trying to say. He wasn't pointing to a particular subclass. To me, it sounded like he meant the martials in general.

He obviously means martials in general. I'm just bringing up champion as an example of a possible baseline to start from.

This is what they said: "There should be a basic standard that all Martials should start with. Then the option to stay basic, go advance, or jump to expert."

Pick something like the champion or purple knight or whatever and start with that as a baseline. Add complexity on top.

 

[Zardnaar]

4e works better at high level mostly because the other editions are barely functioning at high level.

4E doesn't function that well at low levels though so you don't get to tge high levels. Or you don't play it full stop.

Bigger flaw right there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The base game

D&D is a game of adding onto the base standard. (Can't get the bold off )​

Fans make things more complex and harder than it is.

Which base game?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can have multiple levels of complexity in the same game.

You just have to get over your biases.

Many popular ideas are not in the base system of a game only because either the designers or the preferred audience of the designers had a bias that kept it from being included.

Agreed, but show me that in reality and we'll have something to talk about. Until then...mix and match to taste.

 

[Minigiant]

He obviously means martials in general. I'm just bringing up champion as an example of a possible baseline to start from.

This is what they said: "There should be a basic standard that all Martials should start with. Then the option to stay basic, go advance, or jump to expert."

Which is obvious to me. Pick something like the champion or purple knight or whatever and start with that as a baseline. Add complexity on top.

Yeah.

Pick a baseline paradigm for a martial that matches a caster. Then have a basic, advanced, and expert version of every major step.

 

[Minigiant]

Agreed, but show me that in reality and we'll have something to talk about. Until then...mix and match to taste.

Look at epic boom feats

You have Basic ones like Combat Prowess

Advanced ones like Fate

Then you could mast some complex mess of an Epic Boon.

The issue is that the D&D designers don't want to create complex martial stuff either out of fear of grognards or their own bias.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yeah.

Pick a baseline paradigm for a martial that matches a caster. Then have a basic, advanced, and expert version of every major step.

If the Champion subclass is the baseline paradigm for the Fighter class, then their match would have to be one of the full spellcasters. In both 5e and 5.5e, a fullcaster would be the Bard, the Cleric, the Druid, the Sorcerer, the Warlock and the Wizard. Which one is their match now?

 

[TheSword]

It is not (only) a social contract thing. It is a game design thing.
D&D 5e in both versions give DMs RAW only two options to challenge a party combat wise:
4 deadly to 8 medium encounters in a day (or 15+ rounds of battle) or having one or two double deadly encounter.
Anything else is challengeless. One or two combat encounters in a day that are not double deadly? It will be trivial. The party will blow trough it.
But at the same time, you don't want your random wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon to be double deadly, but not making it double deadly makes it meaningless, because it becomes trivial.

The ressource reset after an 8 hour long rest is, what hinders other kinds of challenges. It is a big pacing issue and raw 5e only supports one pacing: 6 to 8 encounters inbetween long rests. Nothing else is really supported. That is the problem with the current rules.

I think that’s been the paradigm for the last 30 years. I don’t really see the problem. There are other games to tell different stories like WFRP 4e.

Challenge for experienced parties is simple - just run one level lower. If the party is particularly competent run 2 levels lower. We’ve played that way for the last three or four years and it’s worked very well,

You don’t get this as default because lots of players are brand new and do operate at peak efficiency. Balancing difficulty for wildly different competencies of party is very difficult.

 

[GrimCo]

None.

3.5 had something like basic pew pew "caster". It was warlock (couple at will spell like abilities and EB that scaled like sneak attack, plus some passive abilities). 5&5.5 don't have caster equivalent to champion fighter.

Champion was dead simple and straight forward in 5e when feats were optional. It had only 2 active features, second wind and action surge. New champion has a bit more, since he gets feats now, plus Heroic Inspiration. Still simple, but more choices now.