D&D (2024) Martial vs Caster: Removing the "Magical Dependencies" of high level.

[Gammadoodler]

No, I mean "magical" as the opposite of mundane. Capable of doing things that normal people in the real world cannot do. Fantastical, supernatural, whatever synonym you want to use. I don't find the monk mundane, and I feel the barbarian skirting the edge so hard it hurts. I also don't mean spellcasting, but I do mean things like walking though walls or channeling spirit energy through your sword.

Take the current fighter and its current subclasses. Now, remove the champion and battlemaster. What's left? Eldritch Knight (spells), arcane archer (magical artifice), rune knight (magic runes), psi-knight (psionics) and samurai (ki/spirit). You also have two lackluster knights aching for an upgrade. Now, let's replace them with a crusader (a knight with a scared calling, a bit like a paladin but more like a warlord in play) and a dragon knight (the martial equivalent to draconic sorcery) and then build into the main class features that call upon those unique powers (channel your power into your sword to gain energy damage dependent on your subclass or into your armor to gain a defensive ability). Your fighter now has a half-dozen supernatural origins for its magical powers. Spirit, magic, psionics, runes, magic blood, divine favor. Pick your origin. But "dude with sword" ain't cutting it for anything but an NPC.

Ennhh. You can create additional justifications for fantastical powers if you want, but ultimately what makes the subclass more or less fantastic is the stuff that you say it can do. Give the "dude with a sword" fantastic things to do, and they become fantastic.

Note: in many/most cases our "dude with a sword" isn't even human; they're 250 year-old descendants from fey, 190 year old poison-resistant miners who see in the dark, big green bros who instinctively avoid death, deadly toddler-sized creatures favored by gods of luck and treasure, angel-babies, hell-babies, robots and more. The "dude with a sword" thing people like to go with ignores how different most D&D characters are from earth baseline before you even start talking about class features.

In fact, I'd ask folks to do this..any time you think to yourself..

"They're just a dude with a sword. Of course they can't ..x".

Replace 'dude' with..

• "250 year-old sleepless descendant of the fey" or
• "Deadly toddler-sized creature favored by gods of luck and treasure"
• "Freaking robot" or
• One of the other descriptions above
• and check how confident you still are in their inability to perform the task described.

(And this is before we even start talking about any of the other bat guano stuff that is also taking place in D&D settings)

 

[Emberashh]

Yet, that is what people think of when they think 'non-magical'... So it's impossible to sell to them that sword training makes you able to anime vanish through a line of foot soldiers who fall in your wake.

You ever think its the description thats the problem and not the effect?

For instance, that same line of foot soldiers can be carved through just the same by describing how Aragorn fights in the movies, and Tolkien lore aside, most wouldn't peg Aragorn as all that magical or even fantastical, despite his very apparent ability to keep taking on countless foes by himself.

And indeed, as I believe I expressed ages ago in this topic, that was part of what I sought to emulate in designing my take on Rangers as AOE Martials. Using exploding dice, every Strike will let a Ranger hit some number of foe more or less simultaneously in the same attack, but with every max die rolled you can keep going, hitting as many enemies as you get dice for.

Flavor wise, Strikes are not even remotely fantastical or magical in any way whatsoever (weird esoteric arguments over whether or not a human can attack so often so quickly aside), and it delivers the same end result without any of the baggage an anime description comes with.

Anime may be popular, but as also said in this topic, its appeal isn't universal and there, clearly, is still a strain of folks within the hobby that are explicitly turned off by its tropes.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I am ever surprised as too how much effort is spent to stop Fighters from getting nice things. Imagine the blowback if Fighter fans tried to dump on spellcasters as often and as heavy.

I know, and I wonder if they are so threatened by the idea of a mythic fighter, then why?

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

So they are Sayans or Kryptonians? Because they aren't human.

is conan john mclean and catwoman sayan or kryptonian?

 

[Krachek]

Fighter is the class people force newbies to play because it's 'simple' and we have no respect for newbies' ability to operate Rage, let alone spell slots.

What was that drumbeat for the champion again? "We need a simple class for new players" "Don't give new players complex classes like wizards, give them the simple fighter so they can get used to the rules" "The fighter is a simple class that doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, perfect for new players"

Hmmm, quite a mystery why a website devoted to making your character for you (and thus being great for people who are new and have trouble tracking a sheet) might show an unusually high level of fighters and champion fighters specifically. Also, what are the free options again? Just the classic four each with a single subclass?

Over the last ten years I play and see play 5ed fighters and even Champion by experienced players and they got a lot a fun with it.
Fighter is not only for newbie that need a simpler class to begin the game.

The mundane guy is a valid role in any fantasy. The mundane guy can have goals and motivations and even if he rely often on the “magical” solutions offered by his friends and items, that don’t make his presence around the table less important. DnD is not only about solving problems, being effective, it’s also about taking the life of a fantasy character, and the mundane guy is one of them.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

According to DnD beyond data Fighter is a popular choice.
That create a mystery. Why people like to play a crappy class!

not really, I have 4 fighters I have made in the last year. I have played 0 of them. I love fighters, I WANT to play fighters, I just need a campaign where no one is going to be a baldesinger or hexblade or warcleric and where the DM will give me the abality to do cool things with stat/skill checks

 

[Gammadoodler]

Over the last ten years I play and see play 5ed fighters and even Champion by experienced players and they got a lot a fun with it.
Fighter is not only for newbie that need a simpler class to begin the game.

The mundane guy is a valid role in any fantasy. The mundane guy can have goals and motivations and even if he rely often on the “magical” solutions offered by his friends and items, that don’t make his presence around the table less important. DnD is not only about solving problems, being effective, it’s also about taking the life of a fantasy character, and the mundane guy is one of them.

1. 'Mundane guy' is not in the class description for any class in D&D.
2. This reads a bit like "the ball boy for the team is just as important as the players on the field". It's not wrong exactly, but if the designers are going to put a class with ball boy capabilities on the roster next to professional ballplayers, they should give some guidance for how that person can feel useful during the game beyond carrying the towels.

 

[Remathilis]

is conan john mclean and catwoman sayan or kryptonian?

Tell me one thing those people do that remotely is magical? All three of them are acceptably modeled with the current fighter or rogue.

See, this debate is fruitless because no one can even agree with what a fighter should be doing. I keep hearing "match a wizard in power/utility" and "be completely mundane/nonmagical" and I keep saying those two are incompatible. A fighter is either doing mundane things mundanely or has magical power and does magical things.

But I can't wrap my head around this idea that fighters get abilities that emulate magic but nonmagically. Pick one or the other.

 

[TwoSix]

Just so. You cannot sell me on fantastical abilities with mundane origins. You can sell me on fantastical abilities with fantastical origins, or you're stuck with mundane abilities with mundane origins.

I think this is an area where D&D's toolkit approach does it no favors, because the martial/mundane classes are trying to fit it into very different definitions of what "mundane" looks like.

Some tables run at GoT level, where most people who fight train for years to just be somewhat better than a normal farmer and can only take a few more hits, and certainly don't do anything flashy or magical.

Other tables are more at comic-book/action movie assumptions, where just having a certain amount of motivation and training make the characters incredibly resistant to mundane damage, and able to perform stunts that are near superhuman but not obviously supernatural, your Batman/Hawkeye/Black Widow level of martial prowess.

Yet other tables assume anime/JRPG/cartoon levels, where a mundane warrior is still able to access obviously superhuman feats through training and willpower, although these might often be actualized through a fantastical background, or simply assume a setting where the mundane IS fantastical from our perspective.

None of these takes are invalid, it's simply a near impossible design problem to make a fighter class that supports both Jon Snow and He-Man, unless you build the game and its settings around the assumption of a strict level cap. (He-Man world goes up to 20, and GOT world only goes to 5, or something like that.)

 

[Emberashh]

I think this is an area where D&D's toolkit approach does it no favors, because the martial/mundane classes are trying to fit it into very different definitions of what "mundane" looks like.

Some tables run at GoT level, where most people who fight train for years to just be somewhat better than a normal farmer and can only take a few more hits, and certainly don't do anything flashy or magical.

Other tables are more at comic-book/action movie assumptions, where just having a certain amount of motivation and training make the characters incredibly resistant to mundane damage, and able to perform stunts that are near superhuman but not obviously supernatural, your Batman/Hawkeye/Black Widow level of martial prowess.

Yet other tables assume anime/JRPG/cartoon levels, where a mundane warrior is still able to access obviously superhuman feats through training and willpower, although these might often be actualized through a fantastical background, or simply assume a setting where the mundane IS fantastical from our perspective.

None of these takes are invalid, it's simply a near impossible design problem to make a fighter class that supports both Jon Snow and He-Man, unless you build the game and its settings around the assumption of a strict level cap. (He-Man world goes up to 20, and GOT world only goes to 5, or something like that.)

The consequences of DND becoming self-referential have been disastrous for RPG players.