Martial equivalent of Wish..

[babomb]

Obviously, unless your DM has a house ruled "Chuck Norris" character class where you can round house kick a planet into tiny bits, nothing really exists.

I think you just answered your own question.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Note: This has no bearing on anything regarding known 4th edition rumors.

A thread in the general forum regarding wishes got me to thinking, one of the intents of 3rd edition, and presumably 4th edition, is that all else being equal, each character class should be able to do equally cool stuff.

Now, Wizards have the Wish spell Clerics, at least in 3rd edition, have Miracle. But what about fighters? What would be the martial equivalent, in terms of potential to affect the game world, of a wish spell? Obviously, unless your DM has a house ruled "Chuck Norris" character class where you can round house kick a planet into tiny bits, nothing really exists.

So, here are two questions worth considering.

1) Should martial characters have an ability that has the same scale or scope of impact as a wish spell (ie, costs XP or whatever to use?)

2) What would a reasonable and consistent martial ability of that scope do?

(Edit) A clarification:

I am NOT advocating that a Fighter get a relabeled wish spell. I am advocating that they get something of comparable power / impact / of roughly the same level of impressiveness.

END COMMUNICATION

Good thinking!

A wish spell isn't all that powerful after the fact anyway so it shouldn't be too hard finding a power equal to a it. I mean, what can you get out of a wish in sheer currency? 25,000 gp. That's is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.

 

[jasin]

1) Should martial characters have an ability that has the same scale or scope of impact as a wish spell (ie, costs XP or whatever to use?)

I'm not sure what you mean exactly.

A power comparable to a 9th-level spell? Sure. I haven't tried them out enough to be sure, but Bo9S 9th-level maneuvers at least make a good effort: heal (as spell) on a successful attack, make two full attacks with a single full round action, deal +2d6 Con damage... that's some pretty impressive stuff.

Or do you mean a power beyond the nominal maximum, but with an extra cost? Like wish isn't just a 9th-level spell which costs one 9th-level slot, but also XP? I'm not sure that's a useful way of looking at things: assuming good balance, wish, together with it's additional cost, is just as useful as any other 9th-level spell. So there should really be no difference between asking "should fighters get something comparable to a wish?" and "should fighters get something comparable to power word kill?".

Or do you mean a true wild card power, that can be used to produced an unlimited range of effects (within certain limits), like wish can? My answer to that is no. I very much believe that all classes should be balanced/equally powerful/as much fun to play, but I also believe they don't need to be able to do all the same things. A fighter doesn't need a power that lets him conjure a house (a la Leomund's secure shelter), not because the fighter doesn't deserve to be that powerful, but because that's not what the fighter is about. Instead, the fighter might get the power to punch through a house's walls.