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

[doctorbadwolf]

who's saying the sword needs to be absorbing the energy at all to return it though? if you're skilled enough that you can defend yourself against spells by deflecting and disrupting the magic without absorbing it into your sword it's only a tiny step to being able to specifically target that deflection right back at the guy who sent it at you in the first place.

Tbh my monk rewrite can deflect or absorb magical attacks with thier body from level 5, Nevermind with a weapon.

I’d be cool with the fighter doing the same with weapons, as long as they don’t do it quite as early/well, since it’s central to my “monk” but not to the fighter.

The rogue, instead, would be able dodge attacks using a modified Uncanny Dodge (evasion for attacks), and if they reduce the damage to 0, or take no damage due to evasion, they can move up to half their speed immediately.

My Assassin also has the Parry/Riposte, but can use any of thier Shadow Moves if they reduce it to 0, so maybe the rogue gains movement they can use immediately and can use a cunning action?

The “monk” I think will get a boost to the damage reduction or to what they get for spending Focus (ki).

Right now you can combo, because flurry gives you 1 extra Focused Strike (quick attack that deals damage equal to your focus die plus Dex or strength mod) 1/turn when you make an attack, as part of the same action, until the end of your next turn.

So, you spend 1 focus for that, 1 to do a riposte and get a free second riposte attack, and then next turn spend 1 before attacking to stack 2 FoB strikes and deal 2 bonus strikes on top of the bonus from Martial Arts, for a level 5+ total of 5 attacks that turn, and a 2 turn + reaction total of 11 attacks.

Basically, you can nova a bit, even before you use a regimen to make all your focused strike attacks deal prof bonus damage spend 1 focus to add 2 focus dice to the damage of your next hit.

 

[James Gasik]

wait are you saying it's inaccurate that the games I ran went the way I ran them?!? what is inaccurate?


my answer when asked what martial abilities I had to account for was none... how can you possibly have a way to tell if that is accurate or not? What metric would you use?

okay, I don't know where anything I said about the biggest things (especially talking about plane shifting as an action) not being wizard spells makes you think that all classes didn't have big daily at 15th+ level that could change a fight?

Wizards and in general spell/magic people did not have a monopoly on it though, and none of it was SO game changing that it would auto win or avoid entire sets of encounters.

please name a daily that a wizard could pop that would do that. I would love to see that play report. Remember though it is being compared to fighter warlord ranger and rogue 25th level dailies too.

everyone got cool paragon and epic class add ons... for the first 2 campaigns I ran/played we all had abilities with some form of "once per day when you die..." as the verbiage.

Oh you want to hear about a Wizard Daily that can radically alter a combat? Sure!

Here's a fun one, Web. Because it creates a zone that lasts until the end of the encounter that auto immobilizes foes that end their movement in it, it makes all those forced movement and slowing abilities every class has access to hilarious! Great with Beguiling Strands, for example.

No, not enough? How about Illusory Wall? It's a utility power that blocks line of sight, and if someone gets close to it, you can make an attack vs. Will to prevent them from being able to move through it at all!

 

[Chaosmancer]

You know, the more I look into this DCC Might Deed stuff, the more I think there is a good concept here to work with. But I would want to standardize somethings.

I've wanted to put battlemaster manuevers into all the martial classes, but that could easily raise the power of the classes. For example, letting you attack with reach, and increase the damage, would be too much to just give to everyone. And it has the issue of the dice running out. With this, there are a few different solutions and trade-offs.

1) By replacing the proficiency bonus with the proficiency die, you now have two options. A normal attack which is more reliably accurate, and a special attack which is more unreliable.

2) You can balance the maneuvers being added to these classes by removing the extra damage from the die. Also, by using the prof die in place of the battlemaster die, you have weakened a few of the abilities in question.

3) You don't have to invalidate the battlemaster. The battlemaster's special thing can be using these abilities with the flat bonus, making them the most reliable users of these manuevers, and giving them the their superiority dice to empower them.

4) You can even set-up a bit of a system. Have some maneuvers that can be taken by all the classes, but you get a limited number (so the barbarian might get two while the fighter gets four, to start with). Using one of these trained manuevers, you use the normal prof die. Using an untrained manuever lowers the die one step. So, until 5th level, you are limited to only the options you chose, but at 5th level you can now attempt more diverse things, just with a d4 instead of your normal d6.

And, by creating a list of chooseable manuevers, first of all, you can avoid the DM fiat problem. But secondly, you can make this entire system optional, so those people who don't want more powerful martials can be fine with their simple martials with their baseline attacks. And this gives a chance to create levels for the manuevers, allowing for more powerful, higher level manuevers, which additionally helps the battlemaster.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Oh you want to hear about a Wizard Daily that can radically alter a combat? Sure!

Here's a fun one, Web. Because it creates a zone that lasts until the end of the encounter that auto immobilizes foes that end their movement in it, it makes all those forced movement and slowing abilities every class has access to hilarious! Great with Beguiling Strands, for example.

I'm sorry that is good but not game breaking or encounter ending... infact it is helpful for the rest of the party, it isn't winning the fight but it is making the rogue fighter or warlord have an easier time landing there attacks without getting hit.

compare that to tasha's laugh or hold person that can just end fights.

No, not enough? How about Illusory Wall? It's a utility power that blocks line of sight, and if someone gets close to it, you can make an attack vs. Will to prevent them from being able to move through it at all!

again so, that is nothing the fighter can stop you from moving was sooner

 

[James Gasik]

Something that I've found strange about D&D ever since 3.0 is this idea that yes, you are going to run into multiple encounters at every level of the game. When I go to visit my 2e DM, the game I play in, we don't even have encounters every session for our high level characters!

Most of the time, we are dealing with NPC's and giving our cohorts and underlings orders. And if we want to go fight something, we decide when, where, and how we're going to do it, not the bad guys.

You consult sages for information, contact other planes, scry and divine, gather needed resources, prepare in advance, then teleport or plane shift as close as possible, often catching foes completely unprepared.

This sort of thinking is completely alien to modern D&D, the idea that the players are the ones being proactive, and not always being on the back foot, and that somehow, the universe conspires to use up all your resources every day, lol.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

lets try to improve this...
I want to hit them so hard they can't move, one attack that deals like tipple damage and paralyze. what level is that appropriate to improv?
Dizzying Blow
Fighter Attack 5
Daily ✦ Martial, Reliable, Weapon
Standard Action
Melee Weapon




Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 3[W] + Strength modifier damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends)

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Something that I've found strange about D&D ever since 3.0 is this idea that yes, you are going to run into multiple encounters at every level of the game. When I go to visit my 2e DM, the game I play in, we don't even have encounters every session for our high level characters!

Most of the time, we are dealing with NPC's and giving our cohorts and underlings orders. And if we want to go fight something, we decide when, where, and how we're going to do it, not the bad guys.

that is how we played 3e 4e and how we play 5e, we rarely have a fight we didn't want to have.

You consult sages for information, contact other planes, scry and divine, gather needed resources, prepare in advance, then teleport or plane shift as close as possible, often catching foes completely unprepared.

sometimes we do that but we often go off half cocked, so not really how we roll

This sort of thinking is completely alien to modern D&D, the idea that the players are the ones being proactive, and not always being on the back foot, and that somehow, the universe conspires to use up all your resources every day, lol.

 

[Emberashh]

wait so your wizards is both alive and dead?
this has nothing to do with that thought experiment.

Another term is the Quantum Spellbook; the material specifics of an encounter and the Casters resources (slots, what they've learned, etc) at an actual table are second (or third or fourth) fiddle to the mere fact that a spell exists.

You know, the more I look into this DCC Might Deed stuff, the more I think there is a good concept here to work with.

Discovering DCC was the closest my group and I came to finding the literal Goldilocks holy grail of RPGs after 5e. Can't recommend it enough, even if it has its own barrel of issues at times.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm sorry that is good but not game breaking or encounter ending... infact it is helpful for the rest of the party, it isn't winning the fight but it is making the rogue fighter or warlord have an easier time landing there attacks without getting hit.

compare that to tasha's laugh or hold person that can just end fights.

again so, that is nothing the fighter can stop you from moving was sooner

Uh, that totally is game breaking when it means the enemies cannot effectively do anything to you. Most enemies in 4e don't have an effective ranged attack unless they are designed as ranged foes. I can't count how many times a simple control spell would lock down enemies for a turn, and this is a daily that creates a zone of nope (of which there are many).

Casting one of these at the right time can turn a deadly encounter into a joke. Hell, I didn't even bring up damage zones like Fountain of Flame any time there are hordes of minions about.

And yes, a Fighter can stop a guy from moving. One guy, since you have can only mark punish 1/round. And that's if you aren't dazed/stunned/force moved out of position. Nothing a Fighter can do can prevent you from moving or fighting for the rest of a fight outside of killing you.

Look, I loved 4e to death. It's the best balanced version of the game I've ever played. But telling me that my actual experience with a Controller shutting down combats is invalid? I'll happily introduce you to the DM's who had to deal with it on a regular basis, and let you hear their rants, lol.

 

[Blue]

i think part of the answer lies in making skills not be so impotent, especially by letting them accomplish beyond mundane actions with skills at higher levels, just remember to balance the checks so everything isn't all riding on a single d20 roll, my preferred idea is the 'X successes before Y failures' method of rolling skill checks, going more for consistency of DC checks than a single sky-high roll.

There was a discussion a number of month ago, where we had a sizable number of posters make the nonsense statement that they wanted their non-magic to fit real-world realism. Where you couldn't, for example, leap a 30' chasm without magic. Yet don't see how that conflicts with following the rules to be able to fall 50' and continue fighting, or take the perfect, critical blow from a giant's axe and still be up.

That unexamined thinking is what holds martials / skill-users back at the higher tiers. If we accept that we aren't trying for a real world simulation, but rather one of the genre of high fantasy, then we can accept Conan-like amazing actions. We can leap into the air to hit a flying Roc and land safely. We can fight wushu-like on the branches of trees. We can strain and lift that immense rock to pull our ally from under it. And yes, we can fall 50' and keep fighting.

We don't have rules for it, yet. But that's an easy place to add them and would definitely help the divide.