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

[Emberashh]

I'm not quite sure what you mean, or at least how that follows from my post. Can you elaborate?

When classes are designed to emulative of past editions, you also have to design the system to be as well, including all of, or at least some equivalent of, the measures taken that insured balance.

You see some of that in 5e. Concentration, the ostensible squishyness of casters vs the ostensible bulk of martials, etc, but these aren't collectively a great execution.

Put another way, 5e tries to be a lot like older DND but without any of the systems that made older DND work better, or at least work closer to what was intended.

Casters that had the power level 5e casters do used to have to slog through ages of leveling with a character that could be killed by a stiff breeze. Thats a far cry from 5es design where casters can very often compete with, or even exceed, what Martials can do.

And meanwhile Martials are, if anything, slightly stronger than they used to be, but have comparitively little going for them due to the devaluing of many systems (exploration, downtime) and the shoddy execution of others (skill system), and thats before you get into to the class design themselves, as much of this topic was concerned with.

Put even more concisely, 5e as designed was too concerned with emulating its predecessors and not concerned enough with being a functional game.

And that tracks, as its well-known at this point that this was a deliberate design choice to apologize for 4es existence.

 

[Emberashh]

Double post but a thought occurs about framing.

I have to wonder if some of these problems is actually originating in the fact that, with utility magic being designed the way it is, that this is framing the kinds of challenges that DMs end up presenting.

So not only are, as a result, Casters overrepresented in the problem solving department, but often it may be that DMs are inadvertently setting up adventures that are biased towards casters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is a great archetype..for the NPCs who hire D&D adventuring parties to solve their problems for them.

Nah, having played the guy who is just a warrior with no special destiny or magic or supernatural gifts in a party of special magical folks, it’s a great archetype for playing in a D&D game.

I disagree with @Krachek that being able to break force effects and at least reach, much less exceed, Olympic athletic feats, makes you not that guy, however.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"We are sooo sorry we made a functional game. We will NEVER do that again, we promise."

 

[Emberashh]

"We are sooo sorry we made a functional game. We will NEVER do that again, we promise."

They are keeping to that promise, if nothing else lol.

Little to no conviction in their own ideas has been WOTCs MO for decades.

 

[Remathilis]

I will be honest and not have a lot of connan examples...
John Mclean shot down a helicopter with a car, survived being shot, blown up and still ran around perfectly fine, and often pulled tricks that no D&D fighter could.
Catwoman is my girl... read Hush she can survive a fight with mind controlled superman read the beginning of bat inc and she can jump from a building use a whip to catch a ledge and swing like spiderman.


what ability's is there to jump use a whip to swing let the whip go, swing it again to catch another ledge and keep swinging?
What ability's is there to climb a sheer surface?

lets do more out of combat... what power lets you charm someone that wont let you in into letting you in with only a few seconds?

John McClean has a boatload of HP, second wind, and proficiency in land vehicles.

Catwoman has evasion, uncanny dodge and expertise with Athletics and Acrobatics with reliable talent.

Now, I'm not going to say that is perfect partiality. And I agree that the current 5e skill system is too vague to allow really cool stunting. Both fighters and rogues could use some real support in skill ability. Persuasion/Deception should allow you to talk your way past a guard. But the foundation of such actions are well within the current fighter and rogue in terms of power.

But that's not what this is about. John McClean and Catwoman still aren't cutting it against Elminster. People aren't satisfied with John McClean, they want Thor. Flight, lightning, super-strength, able to withstand the power of a star, can tank the Hulk, has a (nearly) indestructible hammer that (nearly) no one else can use. Teleports via Bifrost. And of course, Thor has that because he's an alien/God. And I can't stand the notion that John McClean should become Thor because he got to xth level. That Catwoman matches Spiderman point for point without a radioactive spider bite.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

But I hope we can do so without needing a “use a whip to swing action”, specifically.

I don't know if I need swing from whip per say, but something like it would be nice. Imagine a kuni on a chain could do that too. A belmount trick a catwoman trick a scorpion trick. "Get over here"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

the 'mundane fighter' in fantasy imo is "i don't have magic, i don't have supernatural blood, i don't have a divine blade granted by the gods or a medalion of power, i'm just very, very good at beating people up and i've beaten all of the other guys who did have that stuff, because that's how good i am, and i ain't ever needed nothing but grit and elbow grease to do that"

Absolutely. And that guy, you give some really impressive abilities to, but they don’t mimic spells in any way, and probably are best kept in the “do this type of thing as an action, or this type of thing as an attack, and when you do XYZ in place of an attack you still deal damage equal to your proficiency bonus” type features.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

That Catwoman matches Spiderman point for point without a radioactive spider bite.

I am bias, like I said Selena is my girl, but yeah, I would expect in any cross over for Catwoman to be the equal to spiderman

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't know if I need swing from whip per say, but something like it would be nice. Imagine a kuni on a chain could do that too. A belmount trick a catwoman trick a scorpion trick. "Get over here"

What I mean is, I’d much rather see “you can use a whip or chain to perform acrobatic feats, or to grapple other creatures” with some basic guidelines, not ever specific singular powers or manuvers or whatever for each thing you can do with a whip.