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This is based on experience. I ran a campaign for a martial party (one of them was a shadow monk). I gave them plenty of magic items, and even some artifacts. Even with all that, I felt that I needed to add an NPC cleric to the party, because it was really constraining my adventure design. I...

I said that it would be a challenging fight for casters with no magic items, but a winnable one. Not a guaranteed win. Beatable. Whereas for martials with no magic items, it's pretty much a guaranteed loss without fiat (a conveniently placed cliff for them to shove the creature over, for...

Oops, you're right.

A caster party can certainly defeat a Rakshasa. The Rakshasa can't be directly affected by spells below 7th level, it's true. That doesn't mean you can't summon monsters to beat it to death. You could trap it behind a Wall of Force or a Forcecage. You could teleport away from it. Heck, given...

I realize that's not your intent, but you're pretty much proving my point. You might not think it means much. I seriously disagree.

Let's look at an all martial party. A 20th level battle master fighter, samurai fighter, berserker barbarian, and assassin rogue. No magic items. How do they take down a Demilich (CR18, which should be an easy encounter)? It's immune to non-magical weapons. CR4 Coatls could give them trouble...

Sure, but I already said in a previous post that I think that high level martials (T3+) ought to be supernatural. That doesn't necessarily mean they need to be inherently supernatural. The traditional fighter is kind of like Iron Man, where their power comes from their gear (I would prefer...

I said that if the wizard is casting Wish or True Polymorph, the fighter needs something to be on the same playing field. As I explained, the implicit intent was that of equivalent impact. Also, it was implicit that if you don't care about equivalence, then they don't need that something...

My intent is an equivalent impact, not perfect parity. I'm not suggesting that a high level fighter should cast Wish. But yes, I do think that classes should have an equivalent impact across all levels. IMO, Bob being able to attack slightly faster, while Joe is reshaping reality isn't even...

They do tell us so in 5e. Unless I'm misremembering, it basically just says that spells don't work in anti-magic zones. If a dragon's ability to fly ought to be impeded the zone, it would say so. Much like you can't force a dragon to land by casting dispel magic. IMCs creatures like elementals...

That would be fine if casters had to earn their spells the same way. Although I don't particularly like this solution because it assumes the DM will include both spells and martial items in treasure to an equivalent degree. If, for example, you have a DM who rewards plenty of martial magic items...

Technically you don't even have to do a "hard" taunt that forces enemies to attack you. You could have a "soft" taunt where the penalties for attacking anyone other than the fighter are so severe that most enemies will choose to do so. Let's imagine that the fighter has an ability where, when...

Which would be fine if Joe the human wizard was just doing the equivalent of card tricks and pulling rabbits out of a hat. On the other hand, if Joe can cast Wish or True Polymorph, then Bob needs something to be able to stand on same field. He can't simply be Bob the better-than-average mall cop.

1e had magic item tables that were weighted towards martial magic items. Characters were expected to obtain magic items. 3e tossed the weighting and 5e (technically 4e, if you count the optional rule) tossed the assumption of magic items. Additionally, 5e added attunement which severely limits...

A gargantuan dragon doesn't lose the ability to fly or belch fire just because it's in an anti-magic zone. However, at least by the standards of the real world, those things certainly seem magical. I would be very much in support of all martials becoming increasingly more supernatural as they...

Anything that's not a PC. Or at least anything that's not a PC and also has combat stats.

You might not like it, but I strenuously disagree that it's bad design. It's not an overstatement to say that I hated 3e monster design, and so did the other DMs I know. There were a lot of things I enjoyed about the design of 3e for a long time, but not that. The only DM I knew that didn't have...

If I were to restrict myself to only giving "monster" NPCs non-PC abilities, then I'd only be able to do that for the most extreme monster types. Generally speaking, if a player asks to play a monster, it's a reasonable request, and I have the time to stat it up, I'll allow it. Sometimes this...

In my current campaign, I have special fey commonly known as Mungers, that derive their sustenance from spreading rumors, requiring both rumors that have a basis in truth as well as falsehood. These annoying little buggers are almost impossible to keep out, and you never know when one will...

That's cool. In my games it varies to a degree. Sometimes the PCs are more special and sometimes less. At a minimum, I always treat classed characters as elite. Effectively, they're the equivalent of Special Forces in our world. Not every guardsman is a fighter, in the same sense that not...