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

[Emberashh]

we should instead ask for the cool things to be taken from the casters? You think that's easier?

Nerf them right into the ground. All the way down there Morty.

Incidentally it should be noted you can keep the crazy caster stuff and even make it stack up well alongside otherwise mundane pokey stabby types.

DCC accomplishes this by making such things unreliable and potentially hazardous. Its a weird place mainline DND exists in where so much of magic just always works no matter what when its as powerful as it is.

And LNO is going to be accomplishing this by trading utility for much more spectacular combat magic, in addition to much more indepth Martials.

Its a lot easier comparatively to balance say, my Fire Caller Sorcerer who can, by max level, litter the battlefield with dozens of embers that explode like mini nuclear bombs causing tons of AOE damage when said embers hit everybody in range for damage, and not just enemies, and when throwing said embers out isn't really any more inherently stronger than a Ranger who could slice and dice through entire armies by themselves at the same level, without any risk of collateral damage to your allies.

And this is only made easier when out of combat, most utility magic is just as much a question of a skill check as any approach a martial would take, complete with failures and additional hazards that other skills don't induce.

 

[Remathilis]

That would be great. I'm certainly not opposed to keeping the current classes and adding a new mythic martial class. Nor have I heard anyone wanting a mythic martial say the current Fighter couldn't also exist for those that like it.

The idea seems to problematic for some though, once you talk about adding non-spellcasting martials with mythic /supernatural abilities that are closer in versatility and power to full casters.

My current Ravenloft game has a player using Mercer's blood hunter, and the PC can do several things that are magical (light his sword on fire, walk though walls, remove resistance from foes) without spells. But no one in the group would call him mundane. He's got magic blood and that lets him do crazy things.

If the fighter was constructed using the same logic, I'd have no concern with it. Magic blood, spirit, ki, the Force, or muscle power! Call it whatever you want. I just have a hard time with the idea of a local farm kid who goes off to war and comes back able to toss mountains around. Either lose the farm kid or lose the mountain tossing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would argue not everything needs to be an explicit encounter.

But its also the fact that its a little strange to still be inundating a party of level 20s with useless tedium encounters.

PCs at that level are meant to be multiversal heroes. Sure, not every adventure for them needs to be an endless string of epic grand battles, but at the same time you should be reconsidering what you're counting as a normal encounter; fighting a handful of mooks or trudging through the same mundane forests you had them do at level 3 is a waste of session time at this level.

They don't have to be all grand battles of mass warfare to still work towards keeping the players sufficiently occupied; mass warfare is just the easiest way to hit the marks. Solo skill challenges in tandem with group challenges are the next best bet, and then you have your standard puzzles, heists, social encounters, etc that can all be scaled up and configured to keep the group occupied.

But I think you are missing the point. "Duel these five specialized giant lords" isn't a tedium encounter for a party of martials. It is a serious knock-down, drag out fight. It BECOMES a tedium encounter when the wizard can go "What's their wisdom score? Okay, fight over. Next."

And if your entire design process is shaped by "what can I do to challenge the wizard" then the entire thing is about the wizard, because the martials aren't the part you are concerned with challenging.

 

[TheSword]

yeah cause there is a diffrence between me running to the corner store, me tracking a town over to go to walmart or flying to the mall of america... all easier then traveling to china to where the items are made and yet still not in the realm of "Taking a trip to hell"
so then you think we should be instead of asking for a new combat class that isn't a spell caster but can do cool things, we should instead ask for the cool things to be taken from the casters? You think that's easier?

I’m sorry. I think you are missing the point. IF you write an adventure, a substantial bulk of which involves the party being in Hell, you’d do well to ensure there is a method by which party can get to hell. Writing an adventure that relies on a specific character in the party having access to a specific spell is bad adventure writing. What if the wizard dies, or doesn’t have that spell on their spell list?

Instead you have a portal that the party can find or an NpC/Creature able to make the journey with the party in a particular circumstances. Even better have a few options and let the party pick their preferred choice.

Don’t make the existence of an artificial barrier - you have erected as the DM - justify why martials need to have particular powers to overcome that artificial barrier. In our analogy that is the equivalent to you choosing to relocate your factory to China and then complaining that your customers don’t have easy access to it.

 

[TheSword]

I'm sorry that some imaginary house rule you can come up with didn't auto fix the situation but it has nothing to do with what we are talking about.

I really don’t understand what you mean here. There’s no house rule. Schrodinger’s Wizard is not how the game rules currently stand. Wizards have access to a very finite number of spells. Assuming that any wizard has access to whatever spell happens to be of use at that particular time is a fallacy.

It’s why the martial caster disparity is a white room theory and rarely sees effect in actual play.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, that's the nature of magic.

When I run Star Wars, I rarely worry about if a character is an amazing pilot, a crack shot, or an armored bounty hunter, I worry if they are a Force user (and especially if they are a Jedi). Jedi do things that require extra design. Especially after the range of Force powers the prequels and sequels have introduced. But that's what you get when you get characters breaking the laws of physics.

So to ask the question in reverse: 4e is the system that puts materials and casters on the closest footing. What martial abilities in 4e did you have to design around?

I can answer this one. The Barbarian in my game had this thing, I think it was called Curtain of Steel. Basically, if an enemy had the nerve to attack the Barbarian, they'd get counterattacked for a ton of damage. I lost more major enemies that way, lol.

Also, there was this stunt my Dragonborn Fighter could do every other encounter or so that drove my DM up the wall. I'd mark a bunch of guys with my Dragonfear, use my utility to give nearby enemies -5 to hit anyone who isn't me, action point for +4 to all defenses from my Paragon Path ability, then full defend for another +4, giving him the choice of attacking me at +8 defense or my allies at -7 to hit. It wasn't nearly as busted as something other characters could do, mind, but it was fun whenever we had a big group fight.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I’m sorry. I think you are missing the point. IF you write an adventure, a substantial bulk of which involves the party being in Hell, you’d do well to ensure there is a method by which party can get to hell.

except YOU are missing the point, the caster can just say they are going to ____ fill in with ANY plane. No need for it to be built into the adventure.

"Oh the evil town cleric was killed and we need to know how... I will pop into hell and ask" no need for the adventure to have a portal.

Heck the wizard can just say "Today lets go fight in hell"

if the adventure writer wants to go to or avoid hell the writer needs to worry about a caster but not a non caster.

Writing an adventure that relies on a specific character in the party having access to a specific spell is bad adventure writing. What if the wizard dies, or doesn’t have that spell on their spell list?

if the main character dies the story ends is if anything an argument for casters being too powerful.

Don’t make the existence of an artificial barrier - you have erected as the DM - justify why martials need to have particular powers to overcome that artificial barrier.

I didn't erect an artificial barrier... there are HUGE swath of things only magic can do and non magic characters can not.

In our analogy that is the equivalent to you choosing to relocate your factory to China and then complaining that your customers don’t have easy access to it.

no it isn't

 

[Emberashh]

is that you think the improvised actions are effective options.

Its dependent on what the DM allows; hence the comparison to loot tables. Magic items fall under the same logic, after all; they're not much of a solution either if your DM is stingy with them.

This in turn is why Ive said, from the beginning, that it could and should be better integrated so that you can eliminate the DM-centric inconsistency.

But even without that, a DM who doesn't allow for these things to be used to their full potential, regardless of whether or not they fully fix the issue, is a problem in of themselves separate from but exacerbative to the issue.

Theres a number of different things here all intersecting to cause and exacerbate these issues, and resolving only one isn't going to fix the problem; the class disparity still exists even if you stack the Martial with your entire Wish List, because it isn't being caused by just the Martials lack of whatever.

I'd like to see the full rules that you think for this, since I can't find them in the thread, but I will say I've found a rather serious snag in the designs I've seen online

I would read the post on my Rogue in this topic. The snag you pointed out is something I agree with and have long since homebrewed out of DCC (and incorporated from the ground up in the LNO Rogue).

If you successfully roll the Deed/Cunning Act, what you say happens, happens, period end of story. The only limit is that no matter what you describe, any direct damage caused cannot exceed the total value you rolled on your Dice, and any Conditions inflicted only last for 1d6 turns.

It doesn't necessarily say you can't just wave your sword and blow up an orphanage, but said orphanage bomb from nowhere is only going to do 4 damage to something if thats all you rolled on your die.

That dissonance has reliably tempered what people try to do withoud denying the intended rule of cool. But even then, the issue never actually came up all that much (as Im not a Judge you need to spend an egregious amount of time negotiating with), and much of the time the greater DCC community just doesn't have an issue with it.

Particularly because the game and 3P supplements like Steel and Fury have a number of bespoke Deeds with their own succees tables you can roll against, keeping to the same idea but providing a general baseline for what one can and is intended to do with it.

(And LNO will have much the same thing as one could, if they like, use the Warrior's Techniques as a basis for Cunning Acts)

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

I really don’t understand what you mean here.

I mean you made up a house rule restricting a large number of spells that could solve issues with no issue. You then proposed "As GM just take away that magic" as the answer when the problem is WOtC made casters too important.

There’s no house rule.

you said:

Incidentally this is a problem that is predicated on the idea that every wizard has access to every spell.

by the rules every level a wizard can pick any 2 spells from the game and learn them. Changing that so some wizard spells wizards can't learn is a house rule. I'm not even against it, but it isn't an answer to the rules it is at best a work around of a bad rule.

Schrodinger’s Wizard is not how the game rules currently stand.

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

you want to say that if WotC put out a new martial weapon call "Internet Katana" that did 3d12 damage, crit on a 15+ and did x4 damage on a crit... but also cut holes in reality allowing a nubmer of times per day of the prof wielders prof to gate as per the gate spell... that's fine because a DM can say you can't take that weapon even though it has a 250gp cost on it.

Wizards have access to a very finite number of spells. Assuming that any wizard has access to whatever spell happens to be of use at that particular time is a fallacy.

the fallacy is that just because 1 wizard somewhere doesn't have the auto win button it is okay for the wizard players to have the option of taking that auto win button.

It’s why the martial caster disparity is a white room theory and rarely sees effect in actual play.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Also, there was this stunt my Dragonborn Fighter could do every other encounter or so that drove my DM up the wall. I'd mark a bunch of guys with my Dragonfear, use my utility to give nearby enemies -5 to hit anyone who isn't me, action point for +4 to all defenses from my Paragon Path ability, then full defend for another +4, giving him the choice of attacking me at +8 defense or my allies at -7 to hit. It wasn't nearly as busted as something other characters could do, mind, but it was fun whenever we had a big group fight.

AOE marking was amazing.