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

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

The cantrip is doing 14 damage on a 3d8? A fighter is consistantly banging out more than 14 damage. Hell a rogue can beat 14 damage consistently let alone a fighter.

15 the average of 1d8 is 5 by the phb math and so 3 is 15.
that also depends on the fighter.
a str 19 sword and board fighter is throwing 1d8+4 per hit up to 3 attacks.
so 1 hit is 9 2 hits is 18 and if all 3 hit it's 27.

27 isn't even double and you need to land 3 attack rolls... lets do DPR at 70% and 60% to hit rates

wizard 70% is 10.5 per round
fighter 70% is 18.9 per round
wizard at 60% is 9
fighter at 60% is 16.2 per round

now that doesn't count crits (but if they are both attack rolls they both get them)

and the caster can spend resources to up this the fighter can not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Teleportation and planar circles don't have to be magical.

You could write them into the core fabric of the skill system. But it would require accepting detail skill check effects and a more complex core game.

If they are just a skill check, why not have people able to take 20 and activate them? And if it ends up being something that any sufficiently intelligent scholar with time can do... then why doesn't every noble have them set up?

Again, I turn to the ships. Anyone can go to a skilled shipwright, spend 30,000 gp and have a galley built. And many rich and powerful people in the settings have their own personal ships, while many governments have their own navies, costing even more. Time wise, it is not unreasonable to say that building a massive galley take a year.

Now assume we took teleportation circle and just 1 for 1 translated it. 50 gp per day for a year is 18,200 gp, almost half the price of the galley. And so, logically, this would make the teleportation circles as common as large merchant vessels. Much more common, and useable by anyone. Not just a specialized tool of adventuring parties and the hyper elite.

 

[Minigiant]

If they are just a skill check, why not have people able to take 20 and activate them? And if it ends up being something that any sufficiently intelligent scholar with time can do... then why doesn't every noble have them set up?

The DCs are 30 and up. And have penalties for failure.

So only high level folk and expensive skilled NPCs can and will make the check.

 

[Pedantic]

If they are just a skill check, why not have people able to take 20 and activate them? And if it ends up being something that any sufficiently intelligent scholar with time can do... then why doesn't every noble have them set up?

Again, I turn to the ships. Anyone can go to a skilled shipwright, spend 30,000 gp and have a galley built. And many rich and powerful people in the settings have their own personal ships, while many governments have their own navies, costing even more. Time wise, it is not unreasonable to say that building a massive galley take a year.

Now assume we took teleportation circle and just 1 for 1 translated it. 50 gp per day for a year is 18,200 gp, almost half the price of the galley. And so, logically, this would make the teleportation circles as common as large merchant vessels. Much more common, and useable by anyone. Not just a specialized tool of adventuring parties and the hyper elite.

I don't think that kind of worldbuilding critique is a unique weakness of moving supernatural effects to skills. There's plenty of stuff in the magic system, even if we don't adjust how it functions, that threatens the fabric of a campaign setting if we start thinking through prices and "what if there was actually a couple of court wizards?"

Don't get me wrong, I'd love some more time spent on the economic and social implications of the abilities in the PHB and yeah, a society with mass teleportation regularly available to the upper and middle classes is a very interesting conceit I'd be happy to build on. I don't know if that's a particularly relevant argument for whether that's something non-magical characters should be able to interact with.

Unless, and it's possible I'm missing some context here, this thread is long, you're proposing that this kind of utility needs to be separated from the skill system, which needs to model universal mundane capability, and moved instead into class features?

 

[Gammadoodler]

Teleportation and planar circles don't have to be magical.

You could write them into the core fabric of the skill system. But it would require accepting detail skill check effects and a more complex core game.

I can see a temptation to introduce complexity not a requirement.

All the mechanics and effects here are 100% within the control of the game designers.

Complexity or simplicity may each have some knock-on worldbuilding impacts, but I don't think either would be definitively better than the other.

 

[Minigiant]

I can see a temptation to introduce complexity not a requirement.

All the mechanics and effects here are 100% within the control of the game designers.

Complexity or simplicity may each have some knock-on worldbuilding impacts, but I don't think either would be definitively better than the other.

Complexity is not a requirement.

However Simplicity is often the road to unintended and likely unwanted consequences.

"A simple skill houserule that allows teleportation and planseshifting" is a dasaster waiting to happen. Maybe a nice disaster but that cannot be counted on.

 

[bloodtide]

Now, I think I agree that long range teleportation or planar travel is just always going to be magical. The real question, I think, is availability. Because with things like making teleportation circles activatable with just a code, you really are moving them into a more common and more widely-used space, because anyone can use them.

Well....you can make "long range travel" like Stargates. Or Transporters.

A Stargate is a 100% technological mundane non-magical way to do long range travel. Just like Star Treks Transporters.

Take some runes and put them in the right order ("aka dial the gate") and you can do long range travel. But not just "anyone" can do it as it takes skill and intelligence.

 

[Gammadoodler]

However Simplicity is often the road to unintended and likely unwanted consequences.

So is complexity.

Ultimately the question isn't whether the design is simple or complex, it's whether it is good.

The core requirement is how well it reflects the way you'd like to see worlds operate, and how well the game runs.

Perhaps the process you want to see is complex and you think the game would run better if the rules reflected the complexity you envision in the process.

Or perhaps either the process isn't that complex,
or you don't think the game would run well with complex rules to govern the process.

All of these are valid potential outcomes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The DCs are 30 and up. And have penalties for failure.

So only high level folk and expensive skilled NPCs can and will make the check.

At DC 30 how is a fighter with a +2 Intelligence supposed to accomplish them? Now we are back at the beginning, and no magical dependency has been removed. It has now simply shifted from wizards and sorcerers to bards and rogues.

 

[TheSword]

15 the average of 1d8 is 5 by the phb math and so 3 is 15.
that also depends on the fighter.
a str 19 sword and board fighter is throwing 1d8+4 per hit up to 3 attacks.
so 1 hit is 9 2 hits is 18 and if all 3 hit it's 27.

27 isn't even double and you need to land 3 attack rolls... lets do DPR at 70% and 60% to hit rates

wizard 70% is 10.5 per round
fighter 70% is 18.9 per round
wizard at 60% is 9
fighter at 60% is 16.2 per round

now that doesn't count crits (but if they are both attack rolls they both get them)

and the caster can spend resources to up this the fighter can not.

Ok. I’m not sure what your point is. You’ve just made my excellently… even a basic fighter wielding a long sword does much more damage than cantrips at every level. You’re also not taking into account Magic resistance (common), energy resistance (relatively common) and immunity (common enough at level 11+)

Of course fighters have fighting styles, feats, Battlemaster powers, and the ubiquitous magic weapons etc. so they have plenty of their own resources.

The average die counts you’re referring to are for HP and in stat blocks when you don’t roll creature damage. Do you play that? You don’t roll creature damage? That’s not the way of working out averages certainly not for player attacks. If you’re going to be picky about it the. One 5, one 4, one 5 etc. alternating each die. The average is technically 13.5 but 14 will do.

It cracks me up that the people still think to argue this based on Fighter damage not being good enough. The maths has been proven time and time again on the threads. Do a search if you don’t believe me.