D&D 5E 2024 D&D is 2014 D&D with 4E sprinkled on top

[Micah Sweet]

We already have supernatural fighters.

EK, Rune Knight, various 5.0 ones.

Most people haven't actually seen the new ones in action. I've seen level 12 ECOM3 has gone up to 20.

Thinks that's 2 here.

It is funny seeing people claim XYZ when XYZ isn't relevant any more.

I think a more versatile class with a lot of options for supernatural warriors would be better, personally.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think a more versatile class with a lot of options for supernatural warriors would be better, personally.

We have 3 of them. Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger

 

[Micah Sweet]

We have 3 of them. Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger

Too tightly themed. I'm thinking more of a generic superhero class that can be leaned in a lot of different ways. Too complex for WotC, but I can see something like that working on the Level Up chassis.

 

[Voadam]

Belmonts, at least based on the game history, are a special bloodline blessed with holy power and cursed to fight Dracula for all time. Assuming Netflix follows the canon, I assume Trevor abilities are partially superhuman. But that's fine. The Belmonts have a supernatural bloodline. They are the chosen ones. In D&D, they are closer to paladins than fighters (or maybe some are rangers).

I never played the game. It has been a few years since the first Castlevania Netflix series (I am part way through Nocturne, the second one) but I don't remember any holy powers or supernatural bloodline story aspect, there might have been a family curse but their whole thing seemed to be a family dedicated to vampire hunting and they train their kids since childhood in both fighting and monster lore. All the fighting stuff was just cool fighting stuff usually against very supernatural bad guys.

 

[Remathilis]

I never played the game. It has been a few years since the first Castlevania Netflix series (I am part way through Nocturne, the second one) but I don't remember any holy powers or supernatural bloodline story aspect, there might have been a family curse but their whole thing seemed to be a family dedicated to vampire hunting and they train their kids since childhood in both fighting and monster lore. All the fighting stuff was just cool fighting stuff usually against very supernatural bad guys.

Yeah, the games gets much deeper into this lore. The Belmonts have holy power that gives them strength, agility, stamina, the ability to sense vampires, resistance to holy weapons, and to use Vampire Killer (the holy whip only one with Belmont blood can use). Later Belmonts can use magic due to Trevor marrying Sypha. Thus each Belmont is more powerful than the one before it.

Trevor is a mundane fighter the way Luke is a mundane farmer.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My character is nothing. My items are everything.

Items in fantasy fiction are often part of a character.

Hell, it's trite enough that kid's shows featuring powerful characters will often have an episode that is explicitly "I'm heroic because of how I use my powers, I'm special because of who I am, and my magic rainbow wand or sword of destiny or whatever is useful for my goals, but in the hands of someone else, would be nothing (or even destructive)."

It's also true about spellcasters that they are nothing special without magic. Without the "spark" that lets them do fantastic things.

And hey, I'm perfectly fine with giving every PC fighter a bloodline and destiny as part of the kit. I've been perfectly willing to make every PC fighter a chosen one hero/villain imbued with supernatural power. Make them all Percy Jackson. Let completely normal run of the mill warriors be NPCs. Every PC class should be special by default. Everyone wants to be Superman, not Jimmy Olsen. The amount of mundane options in 5e fills a thimble with room to spare. Get rid of that and you add so much more design space to work with.

D&D already kind of works like this today (NPCs aren't fighters, they're veterans or warriors or knights or...), so this isn't even a big leap. It's a question most D&D characters should have an answer for at some point: Why are you just better than most people? What makes you so special?

I'm OK with that answer being delayed 'till about level 5 or so, when the distinction between a PC and the rest of the world becomes basically undeniable.

Trevor from the first anime is a pretty good example of the "not obviously supernatural" warrior, although he's definitely supernatural in what he's able to accomplish. The whip plays a role, the Belmont bloodline probably plays a role, but his powerset is mostly defined by being a badass.

Sure, but he's not adventuring alongside characters who can grant wishes once a day and teleport between dimensions if they want to and raise the dead. His supernatural-ness is subtle, but nobody in his party has abilities like high-level D&D spellcasters do. It's not a party of demigod-slayers...the magic the casters have is not that powerful. The flashiest is probably the summoner, but "make a bird claw your face" is not the same impact as even a mid-level D&D spellcaster.

There's a lot of unstated "magic is just too strong" in some of the martial/caster angst, and that's a fundamentally different argument than "martials are weak."

There's also a bit of "D&D should probably cap out at about level 10 anyway" hidden in there, which is also a fundamentally different argument.

Neither of which I really disagree with, tbh, but those both require different design fixes than just amping up martial power.

If the only change we made to the game was that it now went 1-10 and 5th level spells are the max power level (maybe with some optional higher-level add-ons), we might still have the issue, but I bet we'd have it mitigated significantly. Even more so if the game went 1-5 (which is still about 4-6 months of gameplay, so not even a small amount of real world time).

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Items in fantasy fiction are often part of a character.

Hell, it's trite enough that kid's shows featuring powerful characters will often have an episode that is explicitly "I'm heroic because of how I use my powers, I'm special because of who I am, and my magic rainbow wand or sword of destiny or whatever is useful for my goals, but in the hands of someone else, would be nothing (or even destructive)."

It's also true about spellcasters that they are nothing special without magic. Without the "spark" that lets them do fantastic things.

The difference being that in D&D it is not possible to build a character who relies on using the legendary sword of valor, because the legendary sword of valor might not be the loot that the player finds, and heck they might find it, but what if they find a better sword?

Casters get to pick how they are awesome.

Fighter players must hope that the GM allows them to be good.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The difference being that in D&D it is not possible to build a character who relies on using the legendary sword of valor, because the legendary sword of valor might not be the loot that the player finds, and heck they might find it, but what if they find a better sword?

Casters get to pick how they are awesome.

Fighter players must hope that the GM allows them to be good.

That's exactly the thing this design is meant to address! Legendary swords of valor as guaranteed class power!

 

[CreamCloud0]

That's exactly the thing this design is meant to address! Legendary swords of valor as guaranteed class power!

it's a shame that it's not 'my skill makes it so that any blade i wield is as dangerous as the blade of valor'

 

[Scribe]

it's a shame that it's not 'my skill makes it so that any blade i wield is as dangerous as the blade of valor'

I mean in other cough*better*cough systems, the +hit for a pure martial is generally going to be much much higher, so their attacks are more dangerous than some random with a nice sword.