D&D 5E (2014) Can mundane classes have a resource which powers abilities?

[Obryn]

As a newbie D&D player you should become familiar with a Vorpal sword...

Right, so beheading (and severing limbs) can't be done by a skilled fighter without a magic gizmo, whereas a caster can point and ignore all hp. Brilliant.

 

[Bluenose]

Right, so beheading (and severing limbs) can't be done by a skilled fighter without a magic gizmo, whereas a caster can point and ignore all hp. Brilliant.

It's magic. It gets to bypass the whole Combat is Abstract and Hit Points are Abstract and The Game Doesn't MEasure Those Things and go straight to I Win. Because Real Magic(tm) doesn't just let characters rewrite the rules of physics in the game-world, it lets them hack the rules of the game too. Otherwise it just doesn't feel magical.

 

[Wulfgar76]

It's magic. It gets to bypass the whole Combat is Abstract and Hit Points are Abstract and The Game Doesn't MEasure Those Things and go straight to I Win. Because Real Magic(tm) doesn't just let characters rewrite the rules of physics in the game-world, it lets them hack the rules of the game too. Otherwise it just doesn't feel magical.

Either you miss the point - or you are using some not-so-subtle sarcasm to agree with Obryn.

In any case, my Dwarf using his greataxe to behead a prone orc bypasses nothing, nor does it rewrite physics, nor does it let me do something impossible.
It's perfectly, mundanely, believable - that D&D disallows it is an affront to realism and verisimilitude.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Why do you think powerful spells are typically a daily resource?

Because someone vaguely remembered reading fiction by this guy Jack Vance and was trying to broaden the number of influences used in D&D. It's fundamentally a sim element, not in the sense that magic is real but in the sense that it's trying to create a genre-specific experience in the world that is paralleled by the mechanics.

It's a tangential part of balance at best. Again, resources only matter if you run out of them, and even if that happens, the spread of outcomes it creates is pretty unappealing. A typical D&D spellcaster is not going to run out of useful spells before he gets the chance to rest and recover them.

It's much more important to think in terms of odds of success, opportunity cost, risk, and other in-world tactical considerations.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

So much of this depends on the DM and the playstyle of the campaign that such statements cannot be universally accurate. It's entirely possible for one table to experience fighters as perfectly competent, while another table has them completely overshadowed by spellcasters. You might notice certain trends if you gather enough data, that suggests one outcome is more or less likely than the other, but that doesn't invalidate the experience that someone else may have actually had.

Typically the times I hear Fighters excelling over spellcasters at games is when the Fighter is MinMax McGee and the spellcasters are intentionally gutting their own spellcasting power, which doesn't exactly help the Fighter's case that the "simple" class needs to be a pro powergamer munchkin in order to keep up with the power level Druids get by complete accident.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

Why is it "weird" that magic is different from mundane?

People aren't asking that "mundane" be the same as magic, just that they have equivalent contribution opportunities and power level.

That's also why I hate the word "mundane" in these discussions, they bring up the image of what any joe schmoe who with a pointy stick is capable of and then people refuse to let the Fighter do anything they can't imagine any real world person doing(and as the beheading conversation above shows, sometimes not even that much), which is at odds with D&D beyond about level 3 or so when they're expected to be fighting enemies the size of minivans using a weapon that they'd by all rights be as worried about as you would worry about a splinter.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In any case, my Dwarf using his greataxe to behead a prone orc bypasses nothing, nor does it rewrite physics, nor does it let me do something impossible.
It's perfectly, mundanely, believable - that D&D disallows it is an affront to realism and verisimilitude.

Would that be a fun game, though? Many people agree that high-level 3.5 isn't much fun, with both sides volleying death curses at each other and Hit Points being meaningless. Would it be fun for you if the first orc knocks you down, and either uses an action surge or another orc to behead you?

I mean, there's a reason we have Hit Points in the first place - nobody wants to be a one-hit-point wonder.

 

[Derren]

Typically the times I hear Fighters excelling over spellcasters at games is when the Fighter is MinMax McGee and the spellcasters are intentionally gutting their own spellcasting power, which doesn't exactly help the Fighter's case that the "simple" class needs to be a pro powergamer munchkin in order to keep up with the power level Druids get by complete accident.

No, fighters excel when the DM runs intelligent dungeons in a living world where resting every 5 steps is not possible and is not to lazy to track material components, etc.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

No, fighters excel when the DM runs intelligent dungeons in a living world where resting every 5 steps is not possible and is not to lazy to track material components, etc.

You know the Wizard and CoDzilla aren't really that hampered by that limitation. Clerics and Druids function as well as the Fighter does and the Wizard can just make a bunch of scrolls to bypass his spell slot limitation. Plus material components aren't that big a balancing factor and just turns the game into focusing on the Wizard since the entire party is benefited by him having the components to cast spells.

Also: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Spell_Component_Pouch
A spellcaster with a spell component pouch is assumed to have all the material components and focuses needed for spellcasting, except for those components that have a specific cost, divine focuses, and focuses that wouldn’t fit in a pouch.

Even if that is still somehow a problem, Eschew Materials is a feat that exists.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm obviously far too late to the conversation, but in my mind you could make fighters more interesting if you made a few changes to the conceits of the game.

1. Combat Stamina. Has anyone here played Dark Souls? You have Hit Points that go down when you're hit, and aren't easy to replenish (just like D&D). And you have Stamina, which goes down whenever you take a strenuous action, but which replenish if you spend a few seconds not fighting.

Remember how early playtests of Next had martial dice? And for a while other classes got martial dice too? I kinda of liked the idea of everyone getting martial dice, but fighters get the most. It meant that in any prolonged battle, you wanted a fighter to hold the line.

2. Crack the Shell tactics. In normal D&D, enemies are perfectly healthy until they're dead. It'd be more interesting if most enemies had some sort of noteworthy defense. As long as it's up, they're hard to damage. Different classes (or builds) would be good at bypassing different types of defenses, or perhaps at take-downs if the defenses are gone.

These defenses might be simple things like heavy armor you have to break through, or a magic shield that reduces damage, or more complex like an intricate fighting style that you need the right countermeasure for. Make most offensive spells either built to remove defenses, or take down enemies once defenses are down, but not do both. Maybe you can't put an enemy to sleep unless he's already weakened and distracted, which encourages the fighter to wallop the guy a few times to distract him.