D&D 5E Casters vs Martials: Part 2 - The Mundane Limit

[DND_Reborn]

In laymans term, 4e made noncombat magic into basically scrolls. Rituals were basically expensive scrolls anyone could use.

You could take a feat to learn to them and do them.

So it was more like Use Magic Device than being a spellcaster.

That makes sense, but once you learned a ritual, did you have a spellbook with it or something?
Or did you require a copy like a scroll?
Or was it just something you could do if you had the time and components, etc.?

As long as it was one of the first two, I can definitely see it like you describe. If it was like the third question, then it would just be a minor type of caster add-on to non-casters IMO.

 

[Maxperson]

And this right here is exactly what this thread is about, finding where that line between mundane and supernatural. So you feel that the "earthquake" like effect crosses the line of "mundane"....perfect. What other effects do you think push the line just a bit too far?

Perfect Lie - This one is borderline, but still seems mundane to me.
Beyond the Limit - This one seems okay to me as well. I might actually make it 1 round only with no exhaustion levels, but you can push longer than 1 round with a level of exhaustion for each round past the 1st. So if you want to use if for 6 rounds, you will finish with 5 levels of exhaustion.
Disintegrating Strike - This one passes the mundane mark. A shattering strike which just breaks something into pieces would be mundane, but if it's turning something into powder with a blow, it goes beyond what mundane can do and enters the realm of the supernatural. I also wouldn't let it "break" a creature into pieces. On a creature it would break bones doing more damage and imposing some sort of condition depending on the bone(s) broken.
Unstoppable Strikes - This works as mundane to me, though I agree with the other poster that immunity should be reduced to resistance and not ignored completely. Though if it's breaking a wall of force, that would go beyond natural. Not even the Tarrasque can break a wall of force.
Dispelling Blow - This one seems to go beyond the purely mundane and into the supernatural.
Absolute Defense - This one can be mundane, though I wouldn't specify "natural 1" since a lot of tables use fumble charts. Just making it a miss is sufficient.
Guardian Surge - This one is okay.
Cry of Indominance - My issues with this is personal. I don't like mundane abilities to be able to force PCs to think or feel things. I'd change it to read, "All allies within 60 feet may gain 10 Temp HP if they wish." Whether my PC feels inspired or not should be his choice.
Perfected Form - This is okay from a mundane perspective, but I think it's too strong. At high levels you're simply going to hit everything if you always have a minimum roll of 10. Perhaps 1 round per long or short rest. Or maybe on only 1 attack in a given round.
Network of Spies - I really like this one. You'd have to be somewhere that your network can reach you, but otherwise it's very good.
Seismic Slam - Already answered this one.
Cult of Personality - I strongly dislike the no save aspect of it. If you look at cult leaders, they tend to have a few dozen to a few hundred followers. Most people make their saves. I'd give it a save DC of 10 and limit the numbers you can have to level x CHA bonus or something.
Dance of Daggers - This one seems supernatural to me unless you are doing nothing else. I don't see someone being able to actually fight in combat AND correctly perform these techniques unless there's a little bit of supernatural going on.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Yes, I would call it a "different form of caster", but after hearing how it works not to the extent I was imagining before.

I also think it's closer to a different form of caster than not, and certainly does not fix the "mythic martial" idea we've been talking about.

That said, it is a really interesting and flexible implementation as it lets you easily do things like:

1) Play a magic is rare, dangerous, but powerful game where you restrict your classes to martial only and have very few but powerful Rituals introduced. PCs are all martial classes -- Ranger, Fighter, Rouge, and Warlord say. But have made a pact with demon. Sacrifice some goats and you get some useful lower level rituals. Sacrifice a village and who knows what you could do...

2) Have a pure combat martial with a few divination rituals to represent their ability to go into a trance and see things (not purely martial but closer to a lot of tropes where it's basically a martial with some one supernatural non combat thing)

The more you express your interests, the more 4e actually sounds like a great fit for you!

You get 1-30 levels of balanced basically heroic fantasy play from the base class abilities (as we are defining mundane/heoric/super heroic) and you can add on the rituals and Epic Destiny parts as you wish or not. Spell casters are nerfed (outside of rituals) and martials are boosted.

Your biggest stumbling block might be the uniform power structure, but if you can just see that it's just mechanics and the fictional representation is very different for each class then I think you will be pretty happy! (also the mechanics ARE a bit different in play as well not just the fluff because despite the power structure the classes get meaninful class features that change their ability to use powers and certain classes specialize in different kinds of powers -- area effect, barrier, marks, etc)

This kinda has me wanting to play 4e again!

 

[Minigiant]

That makes sense, but once you learned a ritual, did you have a spellbook with it or something?

You needed a ritual book to do a ritual without a scroll.

Or did you require a copy like a scroll?

You needed a ritual book to do a ritual without a scroll.
You can't copy a ritual scroll into a ritual book.

A ritual scroll just has part of the ritual written on it and has the magic primed to the paper.

Or was it just something you could do if you had the time and components, etc.?

You needed a ritual book to do a ritual without a scroll.
The ritual book contained all the instructions and you needed to confer to it every time.
A ritual scroll just needed activation.
The ritual itself would have time and components needed to complete it.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

Yeah, I feel like people advocating for 4e as the pinnacle of bridging the gap between martial and caster either haven't played high-level 4e or never noticed alot of their abilities aren't actually as epic as they say 5e should be.

Yep, I don't think 4e does mythic martials well (with perhaps the exception of a few Epic destiny abilties) unless you really flex the Skill Challenge system.

What it did do was bring the casters down to a "fantasy heroic" level on the combat grid, removing the ability to directly bypass the basic resolution system, and turned the "mythic spells" into Rituals which was basically regarded as a party resource rather than a class resource.

So perhaps it is the best implementation of caster martial parity in D&D so far, but it was done by bring down the casters.

This thread and others I think is about "given the current Wizard", what kind of mythic martial makes sense.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I think the "perfect lie" is the way to go, powerwise, if you want to change the balance of classes to something more to your liking, but the baseline of what skill checks can do is very fuzzy in the first place, with extreme variability (Athletics doesn't let you reach the actual world records, yet it allow a random commoner to break manacles 5% of the time, and I suppose real life people don't escape manacles daily when they are arrested (or we'd build better manacles...)

Interesting point. Here’s a counterpoint: who gets access to that? Setting aside rogues for a moment (who can get expertise on the skills they have chosen), warlocks, bards and sorcerers get access to “perfect lie”. Clerics and druids get access to perfect Medecine: probably bringing someone back from the dead who died within 1 minute. Wizards get access to perfect lore.

Fighters and barbarians… are going to struggle compared to other classes for everything that isn’t perfect athletics. One, because there is a single skill that relies on Str or Con, and secondly, because fighters and barbarians need to rely on high Str and Con more than classes that can just avoid direct combat.

I’ve been toying with the idea that full casting classes start with a lower point buy and fewer skills than martials (reflecting the fact that in most cases, studying magic/theology takes up all their free time), and that all half-casters are MAD.

 

[DND_Reborn]

1) Play a magic is rare, dangerous, but powerful game where you restrict your classes to martial only and have very few but powerful Rituals introduced. PCs are all martial classes -- Ranger, Fighter, Rouge, and Warlord say. But have made a pact with demon. Sacrifice some goats and you get some useful lower level rituals. Sacrifice a village and who knows what you could do...

2) Have a pure combat martial with a few divination rituals to represent their ability to go into a trance and see things (not purely martial but closer to a lot of tropes where it's basically a martial with some one supernatural non combat thing)

I like these ideas in principle, but (again for my tastes) it would lead too much to a magic is the norm instead of the special. For example, I have been in games where major cities have streets lit by continue light (flames) spells at night, much like our modern streetlights. That is fine for a lot of players, but not myself. Although D&D has magic is prevalent often, I keep it rarer in my own games. You aren't going to find a priest or wizard in every village or town, etc.

The more you express your interests, the more 4e actually sounds like a great fit for you!

No, from other discussion about the mechanics of it, I don't really think so. I was never a big fan of 3E, either, and played it less than 1 year before returning to AD&D. Heck, I've only been involved with 5E for about two years now.

You needed a ritual book to do a ritual without a scroll.

Got it. Thanks again. Then it is really a glorified Ritual Caster feat sort of thing IMO. So, not really another form of caster, but a way to make magic "super common" in some respects.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Interesting point. Here’s a counterpoint: who gets access to that? Setting aside rogues for a moment (who can get expertise on the skills they have chosen), warlocks, bards and sorcerers get access to “perfect lie”. Clerics and druids get access to perfect Medecine: probably bringing someone back from the dead who died within 1 minute. Wizards get access to perfect lore.

Fighters and barbarians… are going to struggle compared to other classes for everything that isn’t perfect athletics. One, because there is a single skill that relies on Str or Con, and secondly, because fighters and barbarians need to rely on high Str and Con more than classes that can just avoid direct combat.

I’ve been toying with the idea that full casting classes start with a lower point buy and fewer skills than martials (reflecting the fact that in most cases, studying magic/theology takes up all their free time), and that all half-casters are MAD.

I'd can see the concern with fighters specifically. I think the removal of attack cantrips (or scaling attack cantrips, at least), would help, combined with a HP cap at say level 5 for casters, 10 for half-casters and 20 for full fighting classes. But groups might start avoiding fights altogether...

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

And this right here is exactly what this thread is about, finding where that line between mundane and supernatural. So you feel that the "earthquake" like effect crosses the line of "mundane"....perfect. What other effects do you think push the line just a bit too far?

I think there are two conversations which are happening at once in both this and the Part 1 thread causing a lot of confusion.

There is the "what should a mythic martial look like that can rival the current Wizard in power, agency, and narrative punch?" I think people have more consensus on what this might actually look like even though some people hate the idea. This involves some sort of "power source" that isn't mundane earth, but people that like this idea aren't too worried about it. Some might need "touched by the gods" or whatever explainations, but some people are fine with these powers as what some select few fantastic martials grow into due to the fantasy world essence itself. This mythical martial should theoretically only be limited by what the Wizard can do -- Wish anyone? Perhaps you could see open ended narrative powers with this class like Illusion spells and wish-- "You create any kind of mythic strength related task -- holding up the world, diverting rivers, chopping off mountain tops, tunneling through solid stone. Roll a reasonable athletics check. The DM decides the effects of this task but they should be very effective and positive on a success. On failure, you still succeed but at a cost. You can only use this once per long rest"

And then there is the "what should a heroic martial look like that strains the definition of mundane into action hero / low tier street superhero range?" I think this is your intention for what you want to discuss out of the OP?

This is much fuzzier where the line is for people. I would also argue that you can never reach the "power, agency, and narrative punch" of the Wizard under this framework unless you include some sort of meta currency or temporal power. This is the Black Widow with Dr. Strange issue. But I don't think people who really like this heroic concept care that it will never reach this point, they just want to get it closer?

It would help if people would declare which kind of martial they are talking about as sometimes it's not clear.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It would help if people would declare which kind of martial they are talking about as sometimes it's not clear.

Good points. But part of the issue is also defining what really is superheroic?

Consider a long jump. IRL world record is just under 30 feet.

So, what is a superheroic/paragon/epic level long jump?

• 50 feet?
• 500 feet?
• 5000 feet?
• Jumping into another plane of existence?
• Or what?

There is also the issue of at-will or constant power versus limited use. Wish is the most powerful spell in the game, but an Archmage can use it once per long rest. So, is being able to jump 5000 feet at will equal to Wish? If not, what is? Until some agreement can be reached, it is all a matter of opinion and perspective.

Since there doesn't seem to be a consensus on what level of power is necessary to rival the archmage, I don't really know how we can proceed.