D&D (2024) 4/26 Playtest: The Fighter

[Vaalingrade]

Or the world's just different.

As I've pointed out before, this is a world where adamantine is a thing. Who is to say it isn't a trace element that makes everyone and everything more durable? Now consider that most creatures don't exert the full strength their muscles are capable of except under duress because they can tear the muscles from their bones.

The result is a world where everything can be naturally stronger, faster and tougher relative to Earth.

That's even before we get into different metaphysics. Remember gods and magic are a thing and gods have portfolios over concepts. So those concepts are an actual thing that can be manipulated in D&D world. And if you can manipulate it, why not be able to punch it?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Part of this is also a misunderstanding of the narrative of casters.

People will look at a 20th level wizard and go "yeah that's Gandalf".....but as has been noted in other threads that Gandalf is really more like a 5th level wizard. 20th level wizards are an entirely different narrative animal, moving about the planes as they please, alter reality to suit their whims, etc. That's something WAY WAY WAY more powerful than Gandalf, probably more a Dr Strange.

So we have players going "I want my 20th level fighter to play like Boromir" but we don't have players going "I want my 20th level wizard to play like Gandalf"..

The D&D wizard just isn’t anything like Gandalf.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm asking for a narrative reason why a person who starts out as a normal person can do godlike things in the fiction. Ki. Primal spirits. Divine blessing, Music of Creation, Otherworldly patrons, Psionics. Magical bloodlines. Spells. Every class has a narrative excuse to do amazing things. Except for the fighter and rogue. They are stuck with mundane origins and mundane abilities. I am perfectly fine with accepting supernatural origins and supernatural abilities, but I am not accepting mundane origins and supernatural abilities.

On the one hand, this was an area that 4e did well with paragon paths and epic destinies, effectively adding in little flavor packages or why you have obtained the coolness you have.

On the other, we do have things like epic boons and feats that come with no expected narratives. "Why are you resistant to energy....um, I just became that one day I guess".

"How did you become no alert that you are never surprised?.....um, I just became that one day I guess".


There is an implied assumption that characters are supposed to fill in some of the narrative rationales for their power themselves. But I think the real ask here is to give the Fighter some core "base explanation" that gives them a platform to start with. A barbarian can go "oh I do that because the primal power of....XYZ gave me the strength to do that". It would be nice for the fighter to have the equivalent. Something like:

Martial Spirit
Testing one's might against the horrors of the world time and again strengthens and purifies the soul. Many seasoned fighters awaken the inner strength of their martial spirit, allowing them to do extraordinary things.
etc etc etc

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is roughly what I responded to that led to the Paladin example. People talking about stealing memories as a rogue.

And I said this.

You replied with this.

And I got this reply from the paladin example.

I'm not going to be gaslight into being told that "Nobody said these things" when they're in this very thread right now.

I'm not gaslighting you. No one is asking for Wish. Justice and Rule was talking in generalities, about how any ability we give the roue can be explained with supernatural skill, that you do not need to go with explicit magic.

I thought it was really obvious since that was the only spell that could do that outside of maybe Wish and the literal cleric feature Divine Intervention. The former not being a spell a cleric can cast and the latter isn't a spell either. But okay, my bad for not being clear that the cleric used True Ressurection. I don't see what the distinction adds.

The distinction is that of degree. If you say "I don't want even the best surgeon to be able to come close to True Ressurection remaking a body and bringing back someone 150 years dead" then most people would agree that's reasonable. But Raise Dead? Why not Raise Dead? It is a far more reasonable set of limitations, and something that makes sense for powerful surgeon characters to be able to do.

Let me clarify this as well: decapitation levels of dead, not heart stopped for a few minutes.

So why insist on that level of dead? This is where I get frustrated, because we talk in some generalities, but then you come in with a "you can't because this EXTREME example I just made up would be ridiculous". It ends up being two different levels of discussion. On one hand, we want supernatural skills.On the other, we have to keep saying "No, we don't want the ability to rebuild people atom by atom with our hands" And you justify arguing against that point because "someone" will want it.

Can we be done with the book club? The explanation was "Frankenstein discovered the secrets of life after studying." Makes for a good enough explanation for a horror, not for an interactive medium where the audience and characters are the same.

No, we can't be done with the book club, because that is the ENTIRE point. Frankenstein discovered the secrets of life, so why can't my character, in a world where I can speak to the god who created me, not discover the secrets of life?

And the entire reason you seem against it is that you want a solid, indisputable explanation already in hand for things that haven't even happened yet, for questions that may never get asked. Which seems backwards to me. Make the abilities first, then explain them after you make them.

Fine, he's so good he works the thread in such a way that the natural magic in all things leaks out of it and he revives the dead. I'm fine with that too. I'm really not as strict as people in this thread think I am about it.

Again, I really don't care whether the rogue is magical and can teleport into the shadows. I just don't want to act like magic wasn't partially responsible as an explanation.

So just accept everything is magical, and stop trying to declare things make no sense.

Not everyone plays like you do. Some people revel in the risks and actually like to have high-risk high-reward scenarios and spells really fits that well. But currently casters are low-risk high-reward and that makes them the defacto better option. And martials are high-risk low-reward.

All I'm trying to do is shift it to high-risk high-reward casters and low-risk low-reward martials. With low-rewards still being firmly in the fantastic, but not at the "request a God to directly enter the battlefield."

Or hey, maybe we can make spellcasters low-risk low-reward and the martials are high-risk high-reward and they're doing the crazy stuff. I don't really care. But if the whole game is low-risk, low-reward it can be boring as then everyone begins breezing through everything with minimal risk and minimal challenge.

And if I ever encountered a game of 5e that felt like I was breezing through it with no risk, I'd let you know. But in near a decade of play it has never happened.

Shift whatever you want, but stop acting like current casters are some brainless button spammers. That isn't how the design of the game currently stands.

 

[Stalker0]

Batman is non-magical. Sherlock Holmes is non-magical. They are both shown to do impossible things on a regular basis.

Yeah if really look at Batman's feats, he is routinely doing stuff that is just impossible in "real world physics".

How many times has he run around with machine guns going at him and never taken a hit? how many times has he broken through a barrier that is literally unbreakable based on the force he could generate as an actual human? And how many times has he been slammed down by super strength enemies and not had every bone in his body immediately snap in two?

You could argue that Batman is a good example of what a high level fighter could be....if you make the swap of his tech for "magic items".


There is another angle we haven't looked at much, which comes from the Buffy RPG. In buffy, you have the slayer (your super powered characters) and your scoobies (aka your meer mortals). The scoobies all get points that can alter scenes and shift dynamics, things like "oh there is actually a key to that door on the window seal).

The idea is that the Slayer is at the forefront of the action, but the Scoobies get to have fun moments of shifting the narrative, and contribute "equally" to the scene, even though in the "scene as presented" teh slayer is the one kicking butt.

You could do something similar for high level martials, letting them spend inspiration to make certain adjustments. We already have this somewhat with things like rerolls, you could take that to a further level.

 

[Clint_L]

Batman can't fight Superman toe to toe without armor, Kryptonite or both. He has tools and technology that gives him an edge, but most of it ends up on par with "has a bunch of magic items that make him better". But people want Batman to be as powerful naturally as Superman. And they want it to be because Batman stopped enough crime that he gained that power.

Hmm. Maybe a fighter should gain special gear as they level that makes them able to do that kind of things. They don't fly, they get special cape gliders. They have customized armor, smoke bombs, putty arrows, grappling guns, anti-shark repellent. All those wonderful toys.

"What's your super power?"
"I'm rich."

So...an artificer?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Whoa there partner, I was agreeing with you. My sentence was saying, "I agree that fighters don't have abilities that push that kind of narrative". Aka there is nothing that would allow a fighter to do that level of "super strength move".

Ah, my bad. Sorry. Been a stressful week and trying to sneak in responses where I can.

I disagree, in 5e there is no class conversion that doesn't include subclass. They are a package deal, and the deal is not an even split. Some classes get more of their mechanical "oomph" from subclasses, others less, but you can never ignore them.

Except, as I was saying, we never discuss them for the spellcasters. We can discuss wizards all day, and never care if they are an evoker, an illusionist, or a Divination wizard. But when discussing raising up martials to match wizards.... we are always forced to confront the subclasses as a "package deal"

Because it requires a fantastical narrative that some people are hung up about. And as I said at the very start of this..... WOTC has already chosen their side. They have agreed that fighters are rooted in some level of reality that prevents that kind of "thor like power". So pushing for that is just yelling into the storm. You can get some small adjustments, but you aren't going to suddenly see a new fighter that is hurling that kind of juice.

Sure, but settling for less means I achieve less.

 

[Shardstone]

Fighter should be warlord,let monk be the complex martial

 

[Shardstone]

If we extend that logic to its natural conclusion, all characters should be able to do everything and the player self-limits their abilities. Except that's not how that works. Players will default to whatever the default of the game is, with all the abilities they have access to.

I've never seen a wizard that refused to cast spells, because its a weird self-limitation.

And, again, I said it was fine if it was added as an optional rule. I just don't want it to be the default. Just think of it being on the special menu that you can order if you know what to call it.
I'm fine with all that but that's clearly magic as well. And I'm fine with magic imbued in all of the martial classes. I have no affinity to the mundane. The fighter is recognized by the god of combat and can now magically summon flying blades or can grow multiple arms. Awesome! What I don't want is for those things to happen because "that's just how skilled he is in combat."
We can have an official bound for what a DC30 is, then make some skills or ability checks automatically hit those bounds.

For example, we could have a DC30 check increase jump distance by a mile. Then, we give the Barbarian the ability to succeed in all strength checks. Suddenly we have a Barbarian that can jump a mile reliably while a wizard would have to cast multiple fly spells or teleport spells. So now its the wizard trying to do what the Barbarian can automatically do but at the expense of spell slots.

The issue here is yall use two terms for the same idea, causing miscommunication when yall are saying the same thing.

 

[Remathilis]

A fighter in a non-magical world trains for hours and it's worth something. What is it worth if a wizard in a non-magical world trains for hours a day? That they get to do slightly better card tricks?

We might be able to pull rabbits out of hats, but are we flying or creating walls of stone?

The origin is the fighter lives in a magical world where levels are a thing and you gain in power as you level up. In a non-magical world Taran wouldn't be able to have 15 levels of adventure, end of story. And even in a magical world without levels the wizard wouldn't be able to have 15 levels of adventure.

I gotta admit, I did not expect "gonzo high magic world" to be the answer!

I don't have anything against that. I love Eberron. I played Exalted a few times. If the goal is to give magical potential to every animal, plant and rock, I could see it. A world where people do impossible things before breakfast. Floating is islands, titanic monsters, magical ecosystems, and societies that cannot and do not resemble the real world. It's a tonal shift, but it's really what D&D has been pivoting towards for a while now.

And to be honest, I think that might be what I'm looking for. A FIGHTER isn't a common guard or soldier. He's made of stronger stuff. He's born with potential common folk that either do not have or cannot harness. The option to have a fighter be just a dude with a sword disappears, but if we're going with a fantastical world divorced from reality, that's not a bad thing. Thb, I kinda wish D&D would embrace the gonzo fantasy.