D&D 5E Martial Characters vs Real World Athletes

[JasonZZ]

No, not really. What I find disingenuous is the claim that suspension of disbelief sufficient to accept fire breathing dragons, magical power that revises reality to the user's specifications, mythical Gods walking the earth, the warrior who can stand toe to toe with Giants, Hydrae and other mythical beasts, and the myriad of other aspects of a fantasy role playing game that we all take for granted can so easily be shattered if a character can equal or exceed the feats of real-world athletes.

I quite concur with what I view as Pemerton's sentiment - that it is unrealistic to apply a standard of realism to one tiny aspect of the game, while accepting "fantasy/action movie" realism on all other elements.

It seems I read your post as the opposite of what you actually meant. My apologies.

 

[Marshall]

It is interesting to me, if I post that I have problems with Inspirational Healing I am told that people are not becoming any more healthy, the HP's they gain as they level are just "Fatigue points" or "Skill". But then we're required to accept that the Fighter gains inconceivable abilities as he levels? So he doesn't become any more healthy from level 1 to 20 and it is ok because Inspirational Healing (Or DOAM), but he must gain magical abilities in that same range?

I honestly have no idea where you're going with this...but the fact that a martial character ALWAYS has some form of Superhuman backing just by virtue of being able to survive double digit level effects, the above Storm Giant, falling, multiple stab wounds, etc, doesn't invalidate non-superhuman methods of recovery. OTOH, it does invalidate arguments that these are real people working within the constaints of "reality" at those levels.

It has also been my experience that "Fighters cant have nice things." has one of two meanings...

1. Fighters should have equivalent abilities to magic users.
2. Fighters should have everything codified so that the DM can't say "No".

The first one runs into the problem of double standards with HP's. The second one should not be handled because the game allows arbitrary input and the rules cannot cover infinite possibilities, so the DM's ability to say "No" is requisite.

I'd say that neither one of your objections is correct and that both those points are true. Yes, martials should have abilities that rival magic and part of that is being bada$$ enough to tell the DM and the world what's what.

So if we're going to discuss "Fighters cant have nice things." I think we first need to come to a consensus on the issue of HP's, because if we're going to assert that Inspirational Healing such as Second Wind makes sense because people aren't becoming more healthy, then we need to drop the magical fighter as we excluded it as a possibility when we asserted that they have the same physical constraints as a normal human.

Thats kinda the point, a 1st level character can be constrained by reality but a 10th, 20th? No, even getting to that level means you have fantastical ability.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

There is another problem too, though: if my 20th level, 20 STR fighter can't be as good as any real world champion athlete ...

What about your level 6 fighter (or level 1 dwarf with great rolls) with 20 str? Because that's where the improvement basically stops. And honestly I think it's a fine stopping point. You're at a Captain America-esque "peak of normal human condition" and can only get stronger and faster and tougher supernaturally or with equipment. You can, however, still attain more skill, so if you're, say, a fighter who has lived through a thousand melees, a street punk with a rusty knife isn't going to bring you down in one swing. (Yes, I know, falling damage, bla bla. HP is an abstraction and doesn't fit perfectly in all cases.)

If you want to play a warrior with supernatural ability, that's not the fighter class. It might be the monk or totem barbarian or ranger, and it might even be it's own fighter subclass (which I'd love to see), but the champion and battlemaster are badass normal. Hawkeye or maybe Batman, not the Hulk.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Thats kinda the point, a 1st level character can be constrained by reality but a 10th, 20th? No, even getting to that level means you have fantastical ability.

You're playing the wrong game, pick up a superhero game. Level 20 martial characters in D&D do not have fantastical abilities simply by the fact that they're 20, and definitely not by the fact that, as you imply, they have more HP. More HP just means better ability to not suffer a killing blow. Like the storm giants you and others have mentioned it just means the 1st level fighter is likely to die in 6 seconds while the level 20 fighter is likely to die in 18 seconds. That isn't fantastical, that is just someone that is 3 times as skilled as someone else at not getting killed.

 

[billd91]

I quite concur with what I view as Pemerton's sentiment - that it is unrealistic to apply a standard of realism to one tiny aspect of the game, while accepting "fantasy/action movie" realism on all other elements.

I think that's a misplaced sentiment, though. There's nothing at all with applying a standard of realism to certain aspects of the game that you want to have some grounding in traditional understandings of reality even while having fantasy/action movie reality elements in other places. The problem I see in the OP is the assumption that a D&D PC maxing out his abilities has to somehow be able to compete with real-world records by highly specialized, trained, and equipped athletes. If the game were designed to model Olympic competitions, that might be a reasonable criticism. D&D, however, is not designed for that and so does fine with a rougher approximation.

 

[Stalker0]

That isn't fantastical, that is just someone that is 3 times as skilled as someone else at not getting killed.

I believe what he is trying to imply though, is that such a level of skill of "not getting killed" is itself fantastical.


If its okay to say that a fighter can reach such heights of "not getting killed" skill that they can avoid death from the strongest magics and the most fearsome creatures from myth....would it then be a stretch to suggest that they could be twice as strong as the strongest real athlete?

 

[Marshall]

You're playing the wrong game, pick up a superhero game. Level 20 martial characters in D&D do not have fantastical abilities simply by the fact that they're 20, and definitely not by the fact that, as you imply, they have more HP. More HP just means better ability to not suffer a killing blow. Like the storm giants you and others have mentioned it just means the 1st level fighter is likely to die in 6 seconds while the level 20 fighter is likely to die in 18 seconds. That isn't fantastical, that is just someone that is 3 times as skilled as someone 5else at not getting killed.

You would have a point except that the 20th level fighter can walk off the roof of a 15 story building, pick himself up and walk away 9 times out of 10. IOW, yes they are fantastical justby being 20th level. That adds up with what pemerton pointed out earlier that just being able to HURT giants, dragons, tree creatures, whatever itself is fantastical.

 

[pemerton]

Aragorn, who is just a really good swordsman

I think that you are underselling Aragorn. As the host rides out from Minas Tirith to the gates of Mordor, Gandalf observes that "there are names among us that are worth more than a thousand mail-clad knights apiece." Even allowing for a degree of rhetorical excess, Gandalf is weighing Aragorn as the equivalent of 100s of ordinary soldiers. In D&D that should mean the ability to cut down whole swathes of ordinary combatants (some form of AoE or the classic one-attack-per-level vs men-at-arms), the ability to break the line (eg the fear effect of the original Oriental Adventures samurai and kensai), etc.

Even considered just as a warrior, a 20th level fighter seems to me to be really very limited.

I think it's a fine stopping point. You're at a Captain America-esque "peak of normal human condition" and can only get stronger and faster and tougher supernaturally or with equipment.

<snip>

If you want to play a warrior with supernatural ability, that's not the fighter class.

The game says one thing isn't magic and one thing is.

<snip>

If they don't want people to apply realistic expectations to something, then the game shouldn't claim those things are realistic.

You're playing the wrong game, pick up a superhero game. Level 20 martial characters in D&D do not have fantastical abilities simply by the fact that they're 20

As far as "playing the wrong game" and "not the fighter class": Moldvay Basic gives Hercules as an exmaple of a fighter, just as Merlin is given as an example of a magic-user.

As far as "the game claiming things are reaslistic" and "level 20 martial character do not have fantastical abilities": the game doesn't claim that certain things are reaslistic. In the 4e PHB, the abilities of martial PCs are expressly called out as going beyond what ordinary peope can accomplish.

Having to play a spell-caster in order to play a superheroic or preternaturally capable character is itself an issue, of flavour and of mechanical balance.

Not to mention: in the real, mundane, world, it is possible to kill or disable someone with a single sword-stroke. There is no reason, as far as realism is concerned, for spell casters to be the only D&D characters able to circumvent the hit point system in combat.

It seems to me that, in 5e, if I had to fight one fight, and had my choice of bringing along a full-strength 20th lvl fighter or a full-strength 20th lvl wizard, I'd be better of with the wizard. My preference, in a system with assymetric resource suites, is that for a wizard to match a fighter in combat the wizard has to nova. Thus, a fighter is never a worse choice as someone to bring to a fight.

The balance for wizads then lies in their utility, non-combat abilities.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

As far as "playing the wrong game" and "not the fighter class": Moldvay Basic gives Hercules as an exmaple of a fighter, just as Merlin is given as an example of a magic-user.

As far as "the game claiming things are reaslistic" and "level 20 martial character do not have fantastical abilities": the game doesn't claim that certain things are reaslistic. In the 4e PHB, the abilities of martial PCs are expressly called out as going beyond what ordinary peope can accomplish.

First off, I don't know why people try to quote random stuff Gygax said in the 70s like it's the word of god. Sure, Hercules was a fighter in 1e Basic, because he sure as heck wasn't a wizard, rogue or cleric, and those were the only options. And unless I really missed something, it's not like 1e fighters had mechanical support for re-routing rivers and holding up the entire planet by yourself.

And again, the real problem you mention isn't about what a character with 20
Strength can do, but rather what a level 20 fighter can do. I'd love to see high-level abilities for a Mythic Warrior who can smash walls with his bare fists, jump buildings, and toss a Toyota across the room. We've got a few classes and subclasses that already achieve some of this, like monk and totem barbarian. Sounds like a killer fighter subclass, even. I support your play style. Now instead of trying to "one true way" everyone who wants to play a badass normal fighter with no supernatural strength at high levels - Hawkeye or Boromir or Odysseus when he's not hocked up on divine intercession - you should recognize that this is ALSO an archetype well represented by past editions of D&D and by the fantasy genre, and let them have their champion and Battlemaster options.

 

[Chocolategravy]

You would have a point except that the 20th level fighter can walk off the roof of a 15 story building, pick himself up and walk away 9 times out of 10. IOW, yes they are fantastical justby being 20th level. That adds up with what pemerton pointed out earlier that just being able to HURT giants, dragons, tree creatures, whatever itself is fantastical.

Yes, and we've known since D&D's start that falling damage is simplified with objects in mind and not PCs and PC falling damage should be based around level, such as d4 * level * distance in 10s of feet. A formula that wouldn't have worked for 1E because at a point the characters gain 1 HP/level... probably why they just went with object falling damage for everything. Your point goes straight to a known broken system and doesn't actually address what I said. Being able to survive a handful of seconds more in a fight against a fire giant is not by any stretch of the imagination fantastical. It's actually pretty realistic as a new recruit or white belt is not in the same league as a special forces vet or black belt.