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

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

¯\(ツ)/¯

Ya know, I've tried to find a compromise, and I don't think I can give the ground needed. If you want your fighter to fly, give me a magical reason your fighter can fly, and you can fly. But I keep getting "no, my fighter should fly because high level PCs need to be able to fly and it's not fair I can't fly when the wizard can! Also, don't call it magic."

I don't think anyone is saying they wont give a reason. I think they just are saying they wont give a spell or magic item as the reason. I could be wrong.

So I'll bow out again, having once again found the point where people wanting nonmagical flying fighters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

that is also why many people (no matter how many times you tell me I am alone or other people don't count)

Not what I said, in either case. Nor is it what I was challenging, but I’ve explained that ad nauseam.

wont play non casters unless the game is geared toward non casters from session 0/

Sure, and if you give fighters a bunch of manuvers in the base class the majority of fighter players may very well lose interest because that isn’t what they want, as suggested by the popularity of the Champion.

complare it to thorn whip

Okay. A feature that allows you to use a whip or similar weapon to grab things or creatures at reach, or to grab onto things in order to do acrobatic stunts or stop a fall, is much better than thorn whip. It allows all the same things, as part of attack actions, with more freedom.

Playing a capable badass warrior who is solely reliant on the skills they've developed through normal physical training is fine. That's a good archetype.

Whats not fine is saying that they fundamentally need to be less capable of solving problems. Especially in a game where what you mostly do is solve problems.

A fundamentally less capable character is an NPC archetype.

D&D doesn't need a whole class devoted to delivering the sidekick archetype.

The biggest problem with this is that in a class based game, power and competence should be more assymetrical than it is in 5e. The fact 5e strives to flatten out who is good at what so much makes it harder to have this discussion.

Beyond that, someone who needs the spellcaster to get past certain things isn’t a sidekick. They’re just not an uber-character.

Percy is fighter/warlock IIRC. Unless he got Hex from a feat somewhere. Orym is single classed I believe.

Magic initiate feat. Taken to represent the mark of having made that deal, without sacrificing levels of fighter.

I wonder how insane he’d have been with a few levels of Hexblade Warlock, though. And, ya know, a subclasss that added to his damage output rather than just giving him trick shots that were basically BM manuevers without the die.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

inspired by the Pathfinder sub-class because CR started out as a Pathfinder campaign)

class. gunslinger is a class in pathfinder. not a subclass.

 

[Yaarel]

to get to level... I don't know... 11?

Regarding the tiers, defacto, they are:

• 1 to 4
• 5 to 8
• 9 to 12
• 13 to 16
• 17 to 20

These tiers are the rythm of the 5e gaming engine, the feats, the proficiency bonuses, and how the class features time arond them.

Because the frequency of games falls off around level 8, this "mid tier" of levels 9 to 12 is significant in 5e concerning who is playing it.

Meanwhile, in earlier D&D editions, 5 to 8 roughly corresponds to the "sweet spot", and 9 to 12 to published "high level" adventures.

Officially, 2014 has the tiers be 5 to 10 and 11 to 16. Recently, there was talk of 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 15, and 16 to 20.

But defacto, the rythm of mechanics across all 5e classes, and the fact the mid tier of 9 to 12 feels so different from 5 to 8 before it and 13 to 16 after it, the tiers split up most usefully by 4-level tiers each.

Each of these five tiers, including the mid tier, contitutes the mechanics for a completely different genre of fantasy.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Yeaaaah, you cannot be a high level mundane shoeshiner.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Yeaaaah, you cannot be a high-level mundane shoeshiner.

i mean...i guess hypothetically you could, but i doubt it'd be very engaging.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I use magic to refer to any effect that isn't replicatable in the real world by normal people

no, yes, i understood that part, but did you understand what i was getting at in that when Magic is a Specific Thing in the gameworld and people in this forum want to discuss being 'beyond ordinary but not using the thing specifically referred to as Magic' it is confusing when you refer to any and all beyond ordinary abilities as generically 'magic'.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Sure, and if you give fighters a bunch of manuvers in the base class the majority of fighter players may very well lose interest because that isn’t what they want, as suggested by the popularity of the Champion.

so make both... why cna't we have both? a simple champion and a complex lord of war?

Beyond that, someone who needs the spellcaster to get past certain things isn’t a sidekick. They’re just not an uber-character.

yeah, cause having round to round options other then attack and attack or move then attack and attack or attack then more then attack is UBER character!?!?!?!

Magic initiate feat. Taken to represent the mark of having made that deal, without sacrificing levels of fighter.

it is still spells why do we need spells to do these things why cna't we have martial non spell abilities?

I wonder how insane he’d have been with a few levels of Hexblade Warlock, though. And, ya know, a subclasss that added to his damage output rather than just giving him trick shots that were basically BM manuevers without the die.

that is the question my group comes to everytime.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The biggest problem with this is that in a class based game, power and competence should be more assymetrical than it is in 5e. The fact 5e strives to flatten out who is good at what so much makes it harder to have this discussion.

Beyond that, someone who needs the spellcaster to get past certain things isn’t a sidekick. They’re just not an uber-character.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by your preference for "asymmetric power and competence".

I hope what you mean is that potence within facets of the game is distributed to the classes unevenly. Such that some classes have more power in one niche than another.

What I hope you don't mean is that some classes should just be better overall than others.

As near as I can tell, this is the archetype Krachek is advocating for. Someone who, because they are mundane, is just worse overall than the magic folks.

I will not get behind that.

 

[DammitVictor]

I don't think anyone is saying they wont give a reason. I think they just are saying they wont give a spell or magic item as the reason. I could be wrong.

I mean, I think "because they're 9th level and 9th level characters can fly" is sufficient reason. 9th level characters can fly for the same reason they have 9 Hit Dice and a saving throw proficiency bonus of +X (whatever). You reach a certain point where "resistance to falling" becomes "immunity to falling" and that's that.

In real life normal people terms? That's "magic". In D&D terms, it's just being 9th level.