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

[Eubani]

Kill the wizard casting Hypnotic pattern?

Or simply wake the people who failed their saving throws. Action surge and a level 5 fighter can slap 5 people for a point of damage and get them back in the fight. Only four people and be can slap the wizard too for lolz

You are expecting a lot out of one action. In either case you are likely using multiple actions and are still not affecting the encounter as much as the single casting. I should of posed my question earlier better, lets say the Wizard is your ally is there anything you can do as a 5th level Fighter that can affect any combat encounter like your Wizard ally casting Hypnotic Pattern?

 

[Emberashh]

It's less toxicity and more effectiveness.

D&D fans are gamers and will focus on having the character with the best chances attempt.

Thebard will do all the talking. The wizard will magic away any problem they can afford to.

It's up to the DM to disrupt "the plan" and D&D has never taught that. The DM has to learn by experience or mentorship.

So the "All combat, No levers" class, the fighter, is as good as your DM is experienced.

Thats a rather narrow view of what players will naturally incline themselves towards doing.

I mean, theres an entire movement in the TTRPG space (actually two of them) that disprove that. Between OSR and FITD heritage games, theres more than enough to disprove that generalization.

And nevermind that as much as its important for people to remember DND is in fact, a game, the same goes in the other direction as a roleplaying exercise.

The toxic selfishness of needing to have a special snowflake thing that no others can overlap with is not something that needs to be, nor should be, adopted from competitive video gaming.

DND isn't a competition, and not very many, clearly, understand that and keep having to be told.

 

[Eubani]

I think the first step to solving the problem is to categorize.

What are the archetypes of non-magical purely one "class" warriors?

Here is my list.

1. Artist The Warrior who focuses on creativity and innovation to come up with new styles
   1. Key Ability: Intelligence
   2. Important Skill: Knowledge skills
   3. Common features: Improvised Attacks,
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: Low. Can transition to skill monkey or rely on invention to bypass obstacles
2. Brute- The Warrior who focuses of pure strength and power to break obstacles
   1. Key Ability: Strength
   2. Important Skills: Athletics
   3. Common features: Super Strength, Super Toughness, Rage
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: High. The Brute has to be as strong as Everything is everything
3. Bully- The warrior who focuses of ruthlessness and intimation to break spirits
   1. Key Ability: Strength Charisma
   2. Important Skills: Intimidation Athletics, Persuasion
   3. Common features: Aura of Intimidation. Super Strength, Super Recovery,
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: Low. The inanimate can't be bullied. Can transition to skill monkey or rely on invention to bypass obstacles
4. Knight- The Warrior whose devotion to a warrior culture or religious idea forces them to hone their strength
   1. Key Ability: Varies depending on culture
   2. Important Skills: Varies depending on culture
   3. Common features: Shiny Armor or Half Nekkidness
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: High. Eiter they dip into some sort of mystical force or a supernatural force gifts them magic items
5. Juggernaut- The Warrior who focuses on defense and toughest to withstand onslaughts
   1. Key Ability: Constitution Wisdom
   2. Important Skills: "Endurance"
   3. Common features: Super Toughness Super Recovery Super Armor
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: High. They have to be able to take anything the world throws out
6. Speedster-The Warrior who focuses on speed and agility to bypass obstacles
   1. Key Ability: Dexterity
   2. Important Skills: Acrobatics, Stealth,
   3. Common features: Super Speed. Super Recovery.
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: Moderate. Depends on how fast they have to be.
7. Technician- The Warrior who focuses on perfect execution and accuracy to perform the already perfected
   1. Key Ability: Dexterity, Intelligence
   2. Important Skills: Performance
   3. Common features: Super Accuracy
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: Varied. As dependent as the establishment.
8. Trickster- The warrior who focuses on deception and trickster to confuse and rattle foes
   1. Key Ability: Charisma
   2. Important Skills: Deception Athletics Persuasion
   3. Common features: Varies. Trick Shots.
   4. Reliance on Supernatural at high levels: Low. The inanimate can't be tricked. Can transition to skill monkey or rely on invention to bypass obstacles

Based on my list,the Artist, Bully, and Trickster can go without magic or supernatural by leaning on being a skill user.

The Juggernauts will reliant on magic and supernatural more often for hardness, immunity, and resistance.

A warrior archetype that a lot of myths speak of but does not get bought up a lot, the Warrior Philosopher archetype.

 

[Minigiant]

Thats a rather narrow view of what players will naturally incline themselves towards doing.

I mean, theres an entire movement in the TTRPG space (actually two of them) that disprove that. Between OSR and FITD heritage games, theres more than enough to disprove that generalization.

The OSR is THE DEFINITION having DM/GM with decades of experiences to manage the game.

It's literally Old School

And nevermind that as much as its important for people to remember DND is in fact, a game, the same goes in the other direction as a roleplaying exercise.

The toxic selfishness of needing to have a special snowflake thing that no others can overlap with is not something that needs to be, nor should be, adopted from competitive video gaming.

DND isn't a competition, and not very many, clearly, understand that and keep having to be told.

It's not about competition.
It's about choosing the best option to can afford for the plyers.
It's about spotlight balance for the DM.

Let's have the fighter charm the orc with his +1 to Persuasion over the rogue with +7 or the wizard with Charm Person and tons of slots to spare.
Random Encounter. Rolled a flying fiend.

Like I said in many other thread,5e was designed to rely of DM who alrady knew how to DM in order for the DM to change the rules in order to move the spotlight.

This whole thread is about how game is on magic spells and magic items to make actions and events initiated by martial character an intelligent choice by the whole party.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

DND isn't a competition, and not very many, clearly, understand that and keep having to be told.

It's also meant to be a group activity. There's not much for the BMX Bandit parts of that group to do if Angel Summoner solves everything.

It shouldn't be hard to see how 'yay the group succeeded' is meagre comfort if they could've succeeded just as well without you there.

 

[TheSword]

You are expecting a lot out of one action. In either case you are likely using multiple actions and are still not affecting the encounter as much as the single casting. I should of posed my question earlier better, lets say the Wizard is your ally is there anything you can do as a 5th level Fighter that can affect any combat encounter like your Wizard ally casting Hypnotic Pattern?

Yes. in a single round a Fighter can use action surge and attack four times as a single attack action. Depending the subclass there’s a good chance the fighter can crit on one of those. that can do a lot of damage, interrupt a crucial spell, take down several enemies or one important enemy.

Hypnotic pattern is good but relies on the wizard winning the initiative, having foes in the right position and if some pass their saves or are outside the area, not waking their friends. wheras dropping someone to 0hp if very effective and for the most part difficult to reverse.

Unrelated to Hypnotic Patter but an interesting thing that is often overlooked in this debate is the importance of focus fire. from a tactical point of view it is far more advantageous to take complete foes out of combat rather than damage lots of foes a little bit, because of the fact that people fight at full effectiveness until they’re dead. Being able to strike hard and repeatedly against one foe is very useful.

 

[Emberashh]

The OSR is THE DEFINITION having DM/GM with decades of experiences to manage the game.

It's literally Old School

You completely skirted around the point being made to comment on something that wasn't being disputed.

It's not about competition.

It's about spotlight balance for the DM.

 

[Emberashh]

There's not much for the BMX Bandit parts of that group to do if Angel Summoner solves everything.

So again it comes down to not being able to be the selfish special snowflake rather than curbing that behavior.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

So again it comes down to not being able to be the selfish special snowflake rather than curbing that behavior.

Telling the GM to just fix it is not a great solution. Especially when that solution may feel hostile towards a particular player (for nothing more than picking a class and trying to play it properly) and it demands that the characters themselves would act dumb (because they've seen what spells can do, so why not just repeat that past success at every turn).

 

[Emberashh]

Telling the GM to just fix it is not a great solution.

Its also not what I said was a solution.