D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Weiley31]

Yeah, and with how spells work and wizards accumulate corruption over time (or at least, likely to) and with how versatile Mighty Deeds of Arms are, warriors are, imo, the best class in that game.

It's actually because of the Mighty Deeds of Arms that I would play as a Martial in DCC since I am a super huge fan of the 3.5 Warblade base class and the 5E Fighter: Battle Master subclass.

 

[Vaalingrade]

yeah the moveis boosted him a bit as a super soldier (each movie he got a little more)

Not as much as you would think.

Humans are a lot stronger than we're really capable of exerting because of our stamina and pain threshhold. If you max those plus strength, you can do a lot more than seems possible. Same with Vibranium, energy absorbing shield + max human reflexes and the skill the angle the shield to deflect equals an amazingly hard defense.

 

[DND_Reborn]

An idea I’ve proposed in a similar thread is not to slow down spell progression, but cap the number of spell slots at 10, with only the top 10 slots associated with the character’s level. Suddenly, casters have to decide if throwing out a Shield is a good use of one of their 10 slots, and they have a real incentive to limit their use of slots in and out of combat (still has problems with 1 encounter days, but that is a separate problem).

10 might be a bit too restrictive for my tastes, but limit it to 1 per level (cap 20) and you still have the same effect IMO.

At 5th level you have 5 spell slots. Want to throw out that 3rd-level fireball? Sure, it is 60% of your magic for the DAY!

At 11th level (assuming the spell progress remained RAW) and need your 6th level disintegrate? Ok, cool, there goes over 50% of your magic since you only have 11 spell levels.

 

[Mort]

I'll make them loose it more...

Level 11+ prerequ "I never miss" when you roll below the AC of a target with a ranged attack they take damage equal to your wisdom modifier

4e had a power like this (at 1st level), the name escapes me. A very vocal contingent were not happy!

 

[DND_Reborn]

Ok, somewhat to my shame I have been watching the Hercules and Xena shows on Tubi (don't judge me! ) and laugh whenever I see things like Xena flipping 50+ feet through the air or throwing someone 20 or more feet. Despite knowing this is not possible IRL, given the setting I still don't view it as "magic".

IMO pretty much anything we could do IRL (even under optimal circumstances) and double-triple it would be within an acceptable bounds of being "non-magic" given a fantasy setting. Anything beyond that, and you are getting into what I consider real "super hero" type things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Personally, I am for bringing casters down, many others want to elevate martials.

The main problem with bringing casters down is that certain fans will be absolutely livid if you do so. Like, "YOU'RE DESTROYING THE GAME, HOW DARE YOU, I WILL ACTIVELY CAMPAIGN AGAINST YOU" levels of hostility and anger. And that vocal minority can heavily tarnish a game's reputation. That was one of the biggest reasons 4e struggled so much (alongside some issues with presentation, a terrible economic environment, and extremely disruptive and unforeseeable internal issues). Many of the complaints voiced about 4e were and still are completely false or wildly distorted, but the edition war partisans didn't care if their criticisms were accurateor not. They only cared that the Bad Edition which Killed Fun would die--and those people won, generating a 5e that bent over backwards to not antagonize them (while still trying to sneak a few innovations in, see Monte Cook's "a little thing I like to call passive perception" and other instances, intentional or accidental, of "let's introduce a mechanic that started in 4e but pretend that it's new/do 4e things but obfuscate the connection as hard as possible.")

So, if that direction is so horrifically offensive, it's clearly not tenable. This leaves the other option as the only realistic course...but that enrages the other vocal minority of players, the old-school fans who want Fighters to be dirt-simple (and usually all classes but Wizard and maybe Cleric too, though for many of them "all classes but Wizard and Cleric" means "Fighter and Rogue" because they don't even want more classes than that.) And those fans, while a lot easier to ignore because...well, the game's been ignoring the most vocal of them for a long time, but they still have a pretty significant influence, and the OSR movement has amped that up significantly.

Which leaves us with the sustained detente we have today. Can't weaken casters too much or you enrage an extremely vocal 10% to 20% of the fanbase. Can't enhance non-casters too much or you enrage another, almost as vocal 10% to 20% of the fanbase. The remaining 60% to 80% would most likely appreciate greater fairness between the classes--or, as like as not, simply keep playing regardless--but the relatively mild-mannered and congenial silent majority are drowned out by the loud few.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah. Basically.

“I cast shenanigans” is kinda D&D’s whole thing. Has been since WotC took over. There was still lots of shenanigans in the TSR days, obviously, but casters had a bit more restrictions, spells by DM fiat, chance to learn checks, etc.

This is one of the reasons to use E6. It lets the characters get to the lower end of the really big shenanigans, but stops there. Things like time stop and wish are no longer concerns.

Funnily enough, 4E solved this problem perfectly. But it was too much of a tactical skirmish game for most fans’ taste.

 

[Weiley31]

4e had a power like this (at 1st level), the name escapes me. A very vocal contingent were not happy!

they were apparently not thrilled with the ability to Shout a person back to full health or something either.

 

[Remathilis]

You have never had a reaction to something without magic being involved?

Alternatively: Advertising is Magic!

I don't think that's accurate at all.

Rules to simulate extraordinary abilities of intimidation, leadership, or the like aren't mind control. The only one of his examples that comes close is "no choice but to charge me", but there's absolutely no diagetic reason this couldn't be a nonmagical ability of a high-level character, defended against with a Saving Throw as normal.

That depends on a simple question: who determines how the character affected reacts; the effect or the effected?

Now I have no problem with a warrior having effects that provide debuffs, but I have a MAJOR issue with abilities that control thier actions. My cowardly rogue doesn't give two spits about honor, so any ability that says he's going to rush up and engage the warrior in melee is mind control; you are now playing my character. If it's magic (like compelled duel) at least I can say the magic overrode his personality by charming him, but with a purely "nonmagical" effect? No.

The other issue is that any effect that you give a PC is, in theory, usable against a PC. So really think of you want a warrior to nonmagically cause your barbarian to throw down his weapon in surrender, your wizard to charge a knight with his quarterstaff in melee, or your cleric to void his bowels and run away after seeing the rogue get critted. Likewise, I don't care how persuasive your charming con man is, I don't like the idea he can override my character's personality and beliefs to be taken advantage of. Because you're crossing the line from me playing my character how I feel is in character and going into me running a toon in a game.

Martials should get nice toys. Playing my PC (or NPCs) for me shouldn't be one of them.

 

[Mort]

Ok, somewhat to my shame I have been watching the Hercules and Xena shows on Tubi (don't judge me! ) and laugh whenever I see things like Xena flipping 50+ feet through the air or throwing someone 20 or more feet. Despite knowing this is not possible IRL, given the setting I still don't view it as "magic".

IMO pretty much anything we could do IRL (even under optimal circumstances) and double-triple it would be within an acceptable bounds of being "non-magic" given a fantasy setting. Anything beyond that, and you are getting into what I consider real "super hero" type things.

I used to love both those shows! they were just FUN.

And yeah, no magic just "skill" - it's exactly what I would hope for/expect for martials.