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

[Remathilis]

Yes. Are you not familiar with Dark Sun?

Making fighter supernatural abilities psionic is bold, but I like it!

 

[Incenjucar]

Dark Sun also has biotech for when you want a frog tongue, and D&D elves have cybernetic limbs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Dark Sun also has biotech for when you want a frog tongue, and D&D elves have cybernetic limbs.

Also awesome. Just didn't like the specific examples provided. I apologize.

 

[Yaarel]

These answers come from my setting.

Where does the fire in a fireball come from,

The ether of the Ethereal Plane is the fifth element, also called quintessence. It is "spirit" as a substance. Ether is the stuff that spirit worlds of Feywild and Shadowfell are made out of. Ether is remarkable because it is a physical but immaterial force. Yet ultimately, matter itself is made out of involuting fundamental forces.

The ether is the weave, the responsive medium of magic. The ether can be both the natural force of gravity and the magical force of Telekinesis.

There are four states of matter, namely four elements: earthy solid, watery liquid, airy gas, and fiery plasma. (Plasma is what the sun and lightning are made of, and is sometimes called heavenly fire.) It is possible to magically form matter out of ether.

The Fireball spell shapes fire out of ether.

what do the components do to produce it and direct it,

There are different kinds of material components. All of them work according to sympathetic magic, where like affects like. A Divine holy symbol is a linguistic symbol, where the concept shapes the weave.

An Arcane material component works like protoscience, where different objects of nature have affinity with different types behaviors. Thus influencing the object can induce the related influence. For example, in reallife ancient Roman magic, an agate stone with encircling rings seemed like it was an entrapping something, thus agate stones could be used medically to stop scorpion poison from spreading. Similarly, an amethyst stone appears as wine freezing in place, thus can be used to prevent the intoxication after ingesting alcohol. The name a-methystos, literally means "not drunk" in Greek. And so on, Arcane magic is figuring out which things of nature produce which desirable effects. A magic wand is like an Arcane sophisticated high-tech equipment.

The listed material components for the Fireball spell are bat guano and sulphur. Both are Arcane objects of nature that have affinity with the element of Fire, as fuel and volcanism respectively.

why is it the size and shape that it is,

The Fireball is an explosion of fire, blasting outward from central point of ignition.

how can it work underwater or in a vacuum,

Not sure, but two explanations are: the Water becomes hot steam, or the sudden Fire pushes the water out of the way similar to an underwater blowtorch.

In a vacuum the fire is momentarily present before it disperses.

how is it impossible to screw up delivering the components, why is it that only some people can do it and not others.

Disturbing Arcane material components is analogous to disturbing the chemicals during a chemical reaction.

Not sure what you mean by the second question, but perhaps some people are more knowledgeable about chemicals and know which chemicals to disturb.

All that stuff goes completely unaddressed except for some vague reference to the "Weave" which is equally bereft of any real narrative justification beyond "it exists to justify magic".

The narrative is there in the D&D tradition, even if it is more like echoes via inspirations from various earlier fantasy novels, and occasionally from reallife grimoires that describe how to cast spells.

 

[nevin]

WOTC own data.

Classes played....
Barbarian 8%
Fighter 13%
Rogue 11%
Cleric 8%
Bard 7%
Monk 7%
Sorcerer 7%
Warlock 9%
Druid 6%
Ranger 7%
Wizard 8%

I think anyone wanting to redesign any class is going to have to accept most of them are played by quite a few people who are very happy with them as they are. Note the current unplayable broken useless Fighter is the most played class. It's either not as borked as you think or people like borked classes. either way continue to whistle in the wind for WOTC to officially fix anything as long as numbers look like this.

 

[nevin]

These answers come from my setting.


The ether of the Ethereal Plane is the fifth element, also called quintessence. It is "spirit" as a substance. Ether is the stuff that spirit worlds of Feywild and Shadowfell are made out of. Ether is remarkable because it is a physical but immaterial force. Yet ultimately, matter itself is made out of involuting fundamental forces.

The ether is the weave, the responsive medium of magic. The ether can be both the natural force of gravity and the magical force of Telekinesis.

There are four states of matter, namely four elements: earthy solid, watery liquid, airy gas, and fiery plasma. (Plasma is what the sun and lightning are made of, and is sometimes called heavenly fire.) It is possible to magically form matter out of ether.

The Fireball spell shapes fire out of ether.


There are different kinds of material components. All of them work according to sympathetic magic, where like affects like. A Divine holy symbol is a linguistic symbol, where the concept shapes the weave. An Arcane material component works like protoscience, where different objects of nature have affinity with different types behaviors. Thus influencing the object can induce the related influence. For example, in reallife ancient Roman magic, an agate stone with encircling rings seemed like it was an entrapping something, thus agate stones could be used medically to stop scorpion poison. Similarly, an amethyst stone appears as wine freezing in place, thus can be used to prevent the intoxication after ingesting alcohol. The name a-methystos, literally means "not drunk" in Greek. And so on, Arcane magic is figuring out which things of nature produce which desirable effects. A magic want is like an Arcane sophisticated high-tech equipment.

The listed material components for the Fireball spell are bat guano and sulphur. Both are Arcane objects of nature that have affinity with the element of Fire, as fuel and volcanism respectively.


The Fireball is an explosion of fire, blasting outward from central point of ignition.


Not sure, but two explanations are: the Water becomes hot steam, or the sudden Fire pushes the water out of the way similar to an underwater blowtorch.

In a vacuum the fire momentarily present.


Disturbing Arcane material components is analogous to disturbing the chemicals during a chemical reaction.

Not sure what you mean by the second question, but perhaps some people are more knowledgeable about chemicals and know which chemicals to disturb.


The narrative is there in the D&D tradition, even if it is more like echoes via inspirations from various earlier fantasy novels, and occasionally from reallife grimoires that describe how to cast spells.

all great answers but once you leave the forums behind one answer satisifies most of the playerbase.

"IT's MAGIC" We often forget in these discussions we are the outliers the one's who's opinions probably mean the least to WOTC.

 

[Incenjucar]

"Are playing" and "Are satisfied" and "Couldn't be even happier" are not the same, but certainly some people are happy with the fighter as is, which is why it should also exist even when a more equitable class exists.

 

[Scott Christian]

It's either not as borked as you think or people like borked classes.

On a fair note, it may be borked, but it is borked for their table, not other tables. In the end, it all boils down to wanting something that is already there, but wanting it to be better.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Your disregard for the narrative part of a role playing game in favor of mechanics you like saddens me.

It’s not a disregard but i know that i can much more easily create narrative for classes than i can create mechanics for them, the narrative of if my fighter is powered by muscle, spirit, divine blood, genetic spider bite or supersoldier serum doesn’t affect game balance one jot in 99% of circumstances and people can and will freely revise that part for a character if they wish, fighers not being able to overcome high level obstacles is a mechanical issue which needs a mechanical solution

edit: and the narrative part of an RPG is just as much if not more about what my character chooses to do with their powers rather than how they happened to get them.

 

[nevin]

and unless it's a large enough group of people the only real option is 3rd party or table rules. which seems to be unacceptable to most people who complain about it. Not sure why.