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

[Hussar]

Reading all 46 pages of this topic I came to the conclusion that the game would be much better if D&D design team remove all utility spells, leaving only the damage spells. Thus, any actions out of combat or aimed at utility would be resolved with skill checks. Well, I'm going to test this rule on the next table I'm going to run.

Fourth Edition D&D Enters the Chat

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Fourth Edition D&D Enters the Chat

...and proceeds to point at all the non-combat rituals the casters got?

 

[Hussar]

I think it is because of the aesthetic of the rogue. We constantly shoe-horn them in on the ideas of being fast, sneaky, and disarming traps, and we often forget to consider how magic-users can utterly dominate in those fields.

Also, rogues are weird in that they have a lot of their story in the fighter archetype. And vice-versa

Well, yes and no. While, sure, you can Arcane Eye for exploration, a rogue does do it better (Arcane Eye can't hear, for example). And, while sure, you can replace the rogue with a caster, the rogue is just as good as the spell equivalents - as in you're replacing like for like. So, a group that has a rogue instead of a caster that's doing rogue stuff is pretty equivalent.

When you replace a fighter with a casters, you gain all the things a fighter can do (ie. deal damage and mitigate party damage) PLUS gain all the things a caster can do. Replacing a fighter with a cleric or a druid or an artificer isn't replacing like for like. It's replacing and getting a whole lot more on top.

 

[Yaarel]

You'd need to be already be banning any full casters to play in those settings anyway, a magical Fighter option is just one more in the same boat as 'no, you cannot play a Thri-Keen in this setting, please'. Or a Paladin with Zone of Truth... or anyone with high level hitpoint amounts, etc.

I like magic. I want as much as possible.

For the sake of worldbuilding, a low-magic regional setting can make Paladin and Trickster Rogue the prominent casters, and Eldritch Knight, Monk, and Ranger niche casters.

Oppositely, for the Feywild cultures, I ban Martial classes. They are almost entirely fullcaster classes with occasional Paladins.

 

[Hussar]

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.

Heh. Tell me about it. We expect the fighter to endlessly replace magic items with better magic items, just to keep up, but, meanwhile, the casters are still using the same spell focus they got at 1st level and are the ones that have to be kept up with.

Imagine if we gated spells behind spell focuses. You can't cast higher than 2nd level spells until you get a magical spell focus item. Then again at 5th level spells and then again at 7th and then again at 9th level spells. There is absolutely zero chance that would ever get passed.

But, a fighter? No problem. He's SUPPOSED to toss away that sword that was passed down from his grandfather the first chance he gets. You want to focus on a particular weapon fighting style? Better hope the DM is going to support that choice and make sure that the "right" magic items show up in the game. It's why you never saw players take anything other that longsword proficiency back in the day. All the best magic items were longswords.

 

[Remathilis]

Different laws of physics and biology.

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

 

[DammitVictor]

Suppose a full-on magical Fighter is ok.

Are there certain themes and tropes that are characteristic for "Martial magic" effects?

Edit: I would probably look at the flavor text of the 4e Warlord powers for convenient place to see what these Martial themes and tropes might be.

4e's actually a bad place to look, because for all the complaints that Fighters are "too anime"... Fighters in 4e don't have any magical powers. Some handwavey boardgame powers (that I'm not a fan of) but they're purely "big guy with a big stick".

Look at Book of Nine Swords, or its spiritual successors, the Path of War and Path of War: Expanded for what "martial magic" might look like.

If you want something less... gamish... look at Flying Swordsmen, a retroclone of WotC's own Dragon Fist (now, officially, Green Ronin's) the AD&D-based wuxia game.

 

[Yaarel]

4e's actually a bad place to look, because for all the complaints that Fighters are "too anime"... Fighters in 4e don't have any magical powers. Some handwavey boardgame powers (that I'm not a fan of) but they're purely "big guy with a big stick".

Look at Book of Nine Swords, or its spiritual successors, the Path of War and Path of War: Expanded for what "martial magic" might look like.

If you want something less... gamish... look at Flying Swordsmen, a retroclone of WotC's own Dragon Fist (now, officially, Green Ronin's) the AD&D-based wuxia game.

I know, and agree.

The reason I would look to 4e is, all the classes use powers that have comparable mechanics. Thus, one can see examples of very high Fighter powers that really do balance alongside very high spellcaster spells. Then make note of how these Fighter powers are flavoring in nonmagical ways, whence the themes and tropes.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Fourth Edition D&D Enters the Chat

4e wrote out combat abilities in an easy to read format that explained how they worked. We know that this doesn't feel like martial abilities. Somehow.

 

[Minigiant]

You'd need to be already be banning any full casters to play in those settings anyway, a magical Fighter option is just one more in the same boat as 'no, you cannot play a Thri-Keen in this setting, please'. Or a Paladin with Zone of Truth... or anyone with high level hitpoint amounts, etc.

WH (Warhammer) has fullcasters. Its just a low level setting.
ASOIAF has full casters... on Essos.
They don't want perfect duplication.
This is why these are the people who try about high HP.
They want 20 levels of low level D&D for players but have level 20 NPC archmages with high level spells.

They want 20 levels of LOTR but D&D rules never did this.
Legolas is like level 8 in D&D and they can't handle what comes after.