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

[Cadence]

Hell, just an ability at level 11 to ignore resistence and immunity to non magical damage would completely erase the one tiny vestigial need for exactly 1 magic item per purely mundane PC, at most, in cases without party buffs.

There are a whole bunch of ways I can imagine justifying that for different campaign worlds. (Flavor related to various power sources like a blessing/commonly trained magic ability/ki; an ability to just be so awesome with your weapon it's like magic; or a gift from your order or the local royalty).

 

[Minigiant]

. Yeah that is not at all the same as your previous claim. If you intended to claim the above, you communicated very poorly.

You know that there is a very large difference between “some source of magical weapon attacks” and “stacked with magic items” such that the fighter resembles a “Christmas tree” with a bare minimum of 4 permanent magic items by high level, but more usually 8+, right?

Of course.

The designers still designed and playtested the fighter as if he or she was stacked with magic items.

5e is a nostalgia edition. The designers sought to replicate the older editions where fighters were Christmas trees.

I mean. Do you think it is a coincidence that Fighter's stop getting new class features the same exact time the Treasure tables ramp up their gifts of magic weapons, armors, and shields?

It’s not just a case of hyperbole, the two statements simply do not mean the same thing. Claiming one is not the same as claiming the other.

I'm not claim they are the same.

I'm claiming the the designers assumed the fighter would have many magic item and designed the game to be very easy to run a campaign when they are not.

It is extremely likely based on the way the PHB, MM, & DMG look that every premade fighter in internal playtest had multiple magic items.

As before, all the game assumes is that the fighter will have some way of dealing damage to most enemies, most of the time, and that they will do so more effectively than most other characters on an at-will basis.

The game assumes more than that. 5e assumes magic. The monsters were designed assuming the party has magic.

5e is just easy to strip out magic.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah absolutely. I have a campaign going wherein there may not be any magic items, and if there are they’ll be wondrous items, not weapons, and I’ve played in similar games.

You and I my disagree on whether there is a problem with the high level fighter overall, but the magic weapon thing is not it.

Magic may help balance things out for fighters, strength based PCs can get a pretty big permanent boost to weapon damage with girdles of giant strength. It can also give them utility they would not otherwise have, everything from boots of springing and striding to things that give fly to Cape of the Mountebank to let them dimension door now and then.

On he other hand, magic helps the casters as well. It's a tradeoff.

 

[Oofta]

Play 4th Edition then. It did a lot to level the playing field.

It's odd when the they made a game that answered a lot of the complaints people made about, disparity between classes, action economy, draw out fights, etc. etc. People decided it wasn't what they wanted after all.

The edition was rushed out the door before it was really done, we'll never know what could have been had they been given more time. I think it had good ideas. I can appreciate what they tried to do even if the outcome wasn't for me.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not the math
It's not the math
It's not the math
It's not the math

It's for "wondrous items"

The 5th ed designers designed 5th fighters that by level 20 he or she would have split (unfairly) ~30 permanent magic items between their 3 allies and themselves.

Show quotes from them saying that, because they've said magic items aren't needed at all.

So a level 20 fighter was designed to be wearing at least EIGHT permanent magic items at level 20 in a normal campaign of 5th edition. Four in a low magic campaign. Sixteen in a high magic campaign. And those are the minimums.

Again, quote it.

 

[Lanefan]

It's almost like a lot of people think 4e went too far away from 1/2/3/3.5 in terms of what they felt D&D had been though (and there were massive threads of arguing about everything, and doing that now probably gets one booted from here). And so those folks would have like something maybe that took some of 4e's best ideas and spliced them in to the older stuff (like what 5e has done and maybe could do more - which has been vaguely popular) and then then tuned it (which we're debating about).

I suspect the biggest challenge there would be getting any kind of broad agreement on what 4e's best ideas were; as what might be 'best ideas' for some would be game-destroyers for others (minions, front and center please!).

For me, though I don't like it as a system overall 4e very much did have some good ideas embedded within it:

--- the "bloodied" mechanic, which could have been used for so much more than it was and really should have been the jumping-off point to a body-fatigue or wound-vitality hit point system
--- big set-piece battles with lots of moving parts, as a feature of most adventures
--- creatures of the same type having different and clearly-defined roles and abilities (e.g. sharpshooter vs brawler vs etc. but still all Goblin)
--- the points-of-light setting idea
--- the 'recharge' mechanic, where a creature's ability refreshes after an unpredictable amount of time based on its dice luck (this one's slowly been growing on me for a while now)

 

[Maxperson]

No need to quote it.

That's what you get when you roll for Treasure in the DMG.
and page 38 tells you how many you get start at higher level from a NPC.

IF you use the magic items that aren't necessary for the game. You do need to quote it if you want it to be anything other than your assumption.

The designers said they don't assume the presence of magic items.

Correct. That means nothing is needed other than base and subclass abilities.

However they clearly did not design for you to not have magic items and the DM not modifying the game.

This is pure assumption by you. The inclusion of magic item tables for those that want them is not proof of your claim. Nor are the inclusion of magic items in modules, since you need those for them to be complete for those who use items(most tables). They can be removed for those tables that don't want htem.

They design the DMG and MM under the assumption that the Fighter is a Christmas Tree or the DM will adjust the frrequency of supernatural monsters.

Nope. They've said otherwise and unless you can quote them refuting that, what you are claiming as fact is pure assumptive opinion by you.

 

[Minigiant]

Nope. They've said otherwise and unless you can quote them refuting that, what you are claiming as fact is pure assumptive opinion by you.

"Magic items can go from nice to necessary in the rare group that has no spellcasters, no monk, and no NPCs capable of casting magic weapon. Having no magic weapon makes it extremely difficult to overcome the monsters that have resistance or immunity to nonnmagical weapons. In such a game, you'll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters."

xgte 136

 

[Maxperson]

Don't make me tap the Xanathar sidebar:

Are Magic Items Necessary in a Campaign?

The D&D game is built on the assumption that magic items appear sporadically and that they are always a boon, unless an item bears a curse.

Right. Most games have magic items, so they assume that DMs will hand out extras. It is NOT designed so that fighters need them. Need = requirement, not boon. That sidebar supports what I'm saying.

Magic items can go from nice to necessary in the rare group that has no spellcasters, no monk, and no NPCs capable of casting magic weapon. Having no magic makes it extremely difficult for a party to overcome monsters that have resistances or immunity to nonmagical damage. In such a game, you'll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters.

That doesn't match up with what I've seen. The parties I've seen with no big casters and a bunch of weapon users did fine against damage resistant creatures. Once they got magic weapons those creatures became a cake walk.

Even if you accept that at face value, it still doesn't translate into fighters needing them. The "need" according to WotC only kicks in if you somehow only have non-casters in the group. In the PHB only 7 subclasses(3 barbarian, 2 fighter and 2 rogue) have no magic. Everything else(35 subclasses) is a caster or has magic of some sort. The vast majority of parties will have the "necessary" spellcaster.

 

[Cadence]

While it does say parties with the right classes don't need them, XGtE also notes in a box a page before the previously mentioned one that the DMG assumes they will get a certain number of magic items (100 on average per party through level 20).

Of course campaigns can be run without them. (Or without some classes, or some races, or even without combat).