D&D General Compelling and Differentiated Gameplay For Spellcasters and Martial Classes

[Manbearcat]

you got 10 percentiles more than than the 16 strength character... you started as
you can carry 180 lbs before being encumbered instead of 100 for joe blow.


Sure if the mages werent progressing into the realm of ridiculous you do not need things to scale so much for the non caster

Hence why Moldvay Basic and Torchbearer works so well. Low level play in a constrained dungeon environment?

No scaling issues and obstacle variance is contracted dramatically.

 

[Oofta]

The basic formula is

"When you make a long jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing long jump, you can leap only half that distance."

That's basically not even math at this point. Just give the Fighter a class feature that adds 5/10/15 feet to your long jump depending on level. It's not rocket science.

Have you ever hit a situation where it really mattered? In any case, seems like quite the niche issue based on the bru-ha-ha this thread has engendered.

 

[Undrave]

Have you ever hit a situation where it really mattered? In any case, seems like quite the niche issue based on the bru-ha-ha this thread has engendered.

It's just an example of a case where the Fighter is held back by what I, and many, consider an unreasonable standard of realism.

 

[Oofta]

It's just an example of a case where the Fighter is held back by what I, and many, consider an unreasonable standard of realism.

Where I would say that fighters don't need to have superpowers to be fun. When I play a fighter I want to play Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova or even Steve Rogers (assuming I can get his magic shield and that Steve is a high level fighter).

But superpowers? Nah. Been there done that, gave away the books to someone who liked that edition.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Once again, people arguing the fighter isn’t more heroic are completely ignoring the list of things already provided. There are a lot more things to compare than badly written high jump rules. Can anyone give me an example of any real world person who can routinely defeat a brown bear in melee combat with ease (and that’s not even a high level fighter)? Or survive a fall from a mile up without a limp?

Yeah, hp are a number, but they represent durability and survivability. Possibly the most important stat in the game. And one of the biggest stats that impact player agency because with a lot more of them, you are more inclined to do more things and put yourself in the thick of the action. Even out of combat stuff like jumping off a cliff to escape because you have enough to survive it easily. Dismissing it like it’s unimportant is extremely disingenuous.

So yeah, @Imaro was spot on. People claiming that a fighter isn’t heroic because they can’t do X specific thing while ignoring all the stuff they can do that is heroic.

 

[Manbearcat]

You can play those characters all the way through levels 1-6/9/10 depending upon your edition of choice. The only way they (save Cap) persist in their relevance beyond that threshold is the same way they do in the comics; authorial power (which, my guess is you are not inclined to deploy mechanics that deploy a currency gain/spend paradigm whereby martial players can spend the currency the same way comic book authors do?) Why is that level range not sufficient?

Apparently the overwhelming percentage of games end around that point anyway?

 

[Undrave]

Having a pile of HP is not an engaging gameplay mechanic. Yes it's impressive to survive a long fall but it's not something you'd choose to do meaningfully and you have no agency in it.

Fall rules cap at 20D6, that's 200 feet... which is about 7 times less than the distance needed to reach terminal velocity for a human (1500 ft) so the mechanics are also wonky on this. The terminal max should then be 150D6 for fall damage.

And speaking of surviving fall:

Vesna Vulović (Serbian Cyrillic: Весна Вуловић [ʋêsna ʋûːloʋitɕ]; 3 January 1950 – 23 December 2016) was a Serbian flight attendant who holds the Guinness world record for surviving the highest fallwithout a parachute: 10,160 m (33,330 ft; 6.31 mi).

And she didn't have 20 CON... but it doesn't really mean anything, just a fun fact.

Where I would say that fighters don't need to have superpowers to be fun. When I play a fighter I want to play Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova or even Steve Rogers (assuming I can get his magic shield and that Steve is a high level fighter).

But superpowers? Nah. Been there done that, gave away the books to someone who liked that edition.

Yes I've read that post the first time you posted it...

Except I'm not talking about superpowers, I'm talking about what real humans can do. the World Record for standing long jump is a little over 12 feet.

In DnD you'd need a STR of 24 to do the same. All I'm asking is that a Lv 20 fighter with 20 STR should be able to beat that record, which it cannot as the game currently stand. If that's a 'superpower' then a Fighter can never be involved in adventure past lv 10.

As for wrestling bears, I found an article on the subject:
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...range-history-of-pro-wrestlers-battling-bears
Exploring the Strange History of Pro Wrestlers Battling Bears

 

[MichaelSomething]

Once again, people arguing the fighter isn’t more heroic are completely ignoring the list of things already provided. There are a lot more things to compare than badly written high jump rules. Can anyone give me an example of any real world person who can routinely defeat a brown bear in melee combat with ease (and that’s not even a high level fighter)?

Wrestling down a bear would be good enough for E6 and many campaigns that don't go high level.

What's a "mundane" Fighter suppose to do vs a T-rex though?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Wrestling down a bear would be good enough for E6 and many campaigns that don't go high level.

What's a "mundane" Fighter suppose to do vs a T-rex though?

Um...fight it? What do you think they should do? Which is another example of a heroic action. What real life person can take on a T rex with just a suit of armor and a sword and win?

 

[pemerton]

Isn't that describing a Battle Master with slightly different fluff? Special maneuvers that can only be taken so often seems to fit.

No. Adrenal Moves are usable at-will. And the use of an Adrenal Move generates a debuff that scales down round-by-round.

The choices involved are therefore quite different.

Just to give one example: a player who sees the situation as high-risk if not hopeless can't push his/her battle master powers harder. If you're out of dice you're out of dice. But in RM, a player in that sort of situation can push his/her Adrenal Moves harder, hoping for a lucky roll. That creates a different dynamic and a different suite of choices.

This seemed like it might be the sort of thing @Campbell was asking about in his first couple of posts in the thread.