D&D (2024) Martial/Caster fix.

[Zardnaar]

Level 13 then.

You shouldn't be able to cast summon martial.

What spell are you referencing?

 

[mellored]

What spell are you referencing?

Simulacrum.

But you can summon plenty of other things too.

 

[Zardnaar]

Simulacrum.

But you can summon plenty of other things too.

Are gotcha. Simulacrum needs a rework. Half level/CR type thing.

Eg clone your level 18 fighter you get a lvl 9 fighter. Or something like a summon spell that mimics the appearance of someone.

 

[Ashrym]

Just want to point out that there are two different sides to my criticism of the abysmal martial design.

1: There are enormous areas of mechanics which they are completely unable to interact with, or where they are strongly deficient

2: They lack out of combat utility

These two are not always the same thing.

I gave an example of out of combat utility and you made a claim against the skill system. It's a DC check for a favor. It's a bonus available to every fighter and not available to wizards or most casters.

An Echo Knight is like a wizard and can basically overrule GM-veto.

To what end? The echo is a combat ability when fighters have combat abilities and a potential scout. That seems minor to me.

The battle master basically has **** in terms of out of combat utility but the Echo Knight can actually teleport which is an amazing amount of utility, and it works in combat as a bonus.

Except for those skill bonuses in the maneuvers and the bonus proficiencies, and all the other benefits fighters get like bonus feats.

That's not bad.

It's easy enough have a potion of comprehension or climbing. The uncommon list includes things like oil of slipperiness, water breathing, or resistance. A 3rd level battle master going this route can apply the effects of the 4th level spell freedom of movement this way via potion brewing. Or have fun making grease areas.

The drawback is it's still a limited resource that takes longer to build up.

Ability bonuses are basically useless because they rely on the weak skill system, and the skill system is unreliable and hard to use in practice. (because it lacks mechanics)

The mechanics are DC 10, DC 15, DC 20 and possibly higher at DC's 25 and 30. We've never had an issue using these mechanics.

I am saying that warriors need a way to do X. You are saying the result of X is Y and since warriors can also do Y this is fine. But we know that they are not the same, so this is invalid.

If the end result is the same it doesn't matter.

A blind person cannot see.

A hidden person cannot be seen. 2024 stealth creates the invisible condition. The conditions blindness causes are available to martial classes regardless of creating actual blindness.

A person with disadvantage can see.

To what end? If the point is the disadvantage then mission accomplished. If the point is not being seen then engage in stealth tactics. These are easily available on martial classes.

It's a good thing too because that ability is cool, but it is one ability in one class and it is much less impactful than the fear spell, and it has no utility outside of combat either.

The fear spell isn't useful outside of combat either and casting is going to start combat. The fear spell gets opponents to drop items and run away. The combat maneuvers can create the frightened condition, disarm the target, and push the opponent away using weapon mastery because these take attacks instead of actions.

Tactical master will later add additional options to the sequence of attacks doing more than the fear spell but to single targets instead of an AoE.

Yes but the non-rogue martial is going to be worse at all, and at higher levels you will need to build a special anti-magic cell to hold the caster. Any conventionally built cell can hold a high level rogue.

No, the non-rogue martial might need to use more attempts to accomplish the same thing. By taking 20 times the required time the success becomes guaranteed as long as it's possible. The standard DC to open a lock is 15 and gets everyone out instead of just the caster with something like misty step.

Between the options of picking the lock, picking the pocket for the key, and possibly convincing a guard to help escape there are options. They're also more more fun than "I take forever but wriggler free of my bonds and cast misty step".

And this is also related to the crappy skill system.

I think the skill system works well.

This is only tangentially engaging with the mechanic in question.

Using the skill system is one of the base mechanics of the game.

The monk example is interesting, however. My understanding of ready action is that the reaction occurs after the trigger and would not interrupt the spell. Has this been changed in 2024 and I missed it?

TBF, it's kind of DM dependent. If the action to waiting for the response is "starting to cast a spell" then there's an interruption. Or "when the wizard lifts his wand to cast a spell". The implied timing is in preparation for a spell that hasn't actually been cast yet.

Stunning or knocking the casters unconscious with cunning strike effectively prevent spell casting anyway.

And so can anyone else, including the casters.

Which makes the argument of what the casters can do superfluous abilities and meaningless.

This is fundamentally a version of the argument that utility does not exist. It's a bad argument.

Getting to a destination faster doesn't change the narrative unless the DM is intentionally creating the need to get to a destination faster. In gameplay it can also be travelled by montage and a meaningless distinction.

Meanwhile, that also avoids and invalidates occurrences that might occur that are meaningful on the travel by bypassing them.

In the end, what was the actual outcome that travelling faster created that made it relevant?

I can use the travel time inside a covered wagon with my alchemist supplies brewing potions per my example above during the travel time so how was getting there faster more useful?

The inability to teleport does not leave martial classes hard done by.

Yes, but paying for it from an NPC is admitting that this utility is unavailable to them.

It is available to them. Via NPC. The ability to trade gold for spells from NPC's makes the spells from PC's less valuable.

That's self healing which is not the same thing.

Healing spells are typically a poor use for spell slots, but using the healer feat isn't self healing and it's available to anyone. All that self healing devalues the ability to heal others because it can remove the necessity to do that healing in the first place.

It's not useful to heal Bob 14 hp with a spell if Bob can heal himself those same hit points anyway.

 

[Ashrym]

Cast simulacrum on your ranged martial buddy.

I would argue that means the martial buddy is giving that ability to the wizard because it takes 12 hours of cooperation and the wizard doesn't have that ability without that buddy.

Plus the spell requires 12 hours of snow / ice not melting. That's a bit of a situational component. ;-)

 

[Clint_L]

I think the problem here is that there is an untapped group of players who are not being reached by D&D.

Right now you have a situation where a player who wants to play a martial has to play a low-influence class. For these people thus they have to make a choice. What is, to them, most important? Do they want to play a martial, or do they want to play an influential class?

Arguing that fighters are good because they are popular misses the fact that a lot of people might make the deliberate choice of playing the class not because it is well designed, but because it is relevant to their character concept.

It's like when I played a battlemaster fighter and retired it because I felt I had no influence, I made another fighter and that time I made an echo knight instead. Why? Because I both wanted to play someone who hits things, I did not want to play a magic user, and I wanted to have more influence (Echo Knight still has less influence than casters, but better than nothing).

So like imagine you put maximum priority on wanting to play a martial just because. Now you have to suck it up and accept that you're not going to have as much influence as a caster.

My point is that that should not be a sacrifice that you have to make. You should be able to play influential martials.

No, fighter is not a “low influence class.” I don’t even know what that means. But I do know that an argument that relies on “the people who like that thing just aren’t as enlightened” is generally a bad argument.

Maybe those people are just as enlightened as you but like different things. Maybe they think standing at the front of the battle and wrecking face is more fun than standing at the back and hoping that an enemy fails their save before the fighter gets another killing blow.

 

[InkTide]

Are gotcha. Simulacrum needs a rework. Half level/CR type thing.

Eg clone your level 18 fighter you get a lvl 9 fighter. Or something like a summon spell that mimics the appearance of someone.

I would argue that means the martial buddy is giving that ability to the wizard because it takes 12 hours of cooperation and the wizard doesn't have that ability without that buddy.

Plus the spell requires 12 hours of snow / ice not melting. That's a bit of a situational component. ;-)

Simulacrum is probably fine. Stepping back from game balance for a moment, within most settings one could probably cast a better (i.e. able to rest, heal, and gain experience) "summon martial" with enough gold to cast the spell in the first place... by hiring somebody for 1,500 GP.

Simulacrum costs 1,500 GP worth of powdered ruby to cast. No powdered ruby, no simulacrum. Maybe some narcissistic wizard somewhere with a tower full of simulacra of themselves is buying all the rubies up.

 

[Zardnaar]

Simulacrum is probably fine. Stepping back from game balance for a moment, within most settings one could probably cast a better (i.e. able to rest, heal, and gain experience) "summon martial" with enough gold to cast the spell in the first place... by hiring somebody for 1,500 GP.

Simulacrum costs 1,500 GP worth of powdered ruby to cast. No powdered ruby, no simulacrum. Maybe some narcissistic wizard somewhere with a tower full of simulacra of themselves is buying all the rubies up.

Wish creates it for free level 17.

Mostly hypothetical imho there's worse spells earlier on.

 

[InkTide]

Wish creates it for free level 17.

Mostly hypothetical imho there's worse spells earlier on.

Yeah the problem there is Wish, as usual lol.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I think there are etiquette rules here against using the laughing smiley on posts that are not intended to be funny, yes? If you do that, stop.

No, fighter is not a “low influence class.” I don’t even know what that means. But I do know that an argument that relies on “the people who like that thing just aren’t as enlightened” is generally a bad argument.

Maybe those people are just as enlightened as you but like different things. Maybe they think standing at the front of the battle and wrecking face is more fun than standing at the back and hoping that an enemy fails their save before the fighter gets another killing blow.

I think it should be obvious what I mean with low influence. I mean a class that has less influence over the game compared to other classes. I have already enumerated several examples of things which are completely or nearly completely out of reach, mechanically, for most martials and that's only covering the mechanical parts. There's also the issue of things being fictionally unavailable to them.

I use the term low-influence because it captures the problem better than using a worse term like under powered. Martials are low-influence because they have little influence over the narrative. This is not by itself a problem if every class were low-influence, but several classes are infamous for having lots of influence over the narrative. There's a reason you have to design campaigns differently at higher levels, because more and more spells appear that can trivialise things.

So I repeat, having more limited classes is fine, but it's a bad idea to mix them with classes that have lots of influence, and it's an even worse idea to also make the limited classes associated with a specific theme. This means that if you want access to the theme, you must play a limited class.

Your elitism argument is annoying, because I'm not saying that these people are not enlightened whatever that means. I don't know how you got that from my post even. I even told you I like the martial concept myself, but the execution in D&D is not very good. After all this thread type is recurring.