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

[Micah Sweet]

Here is a historical game, Marvel Super Heroes (famous for its "faserip" system).

I modified the image when thinking about smoothing out the curve of magnitude.

View attachment 288021

D&D 5e characters seem to start out around "Good" (10).

For example,

Marvel Thor has "Unearthly" (100) Fightning, Weather Control, Dimensional Travel, and hammer, and "Shift-X" (150) Fly Speed.

Iron Man has "Amazing" (50) Strength and "Monstrous" (75) Endurance and Force Field.

Captain America has "Amazing" (50) Fighting, "Incredible" (40) Agility, but only "Excellent" (20) Strength, while wielding a "Class 3000" (!) shield.

And so on.


The idea is. If we can approximate these superheroes as 5e characters, then we can use the benchmark correlations to look across the entire superhero genre, to get a sense of what the Fighter class should be able to do at the appropriate level.

I'll always be in favor of comparing anything to MSH.

 

[Emberashh]

@Emberashh

Can you give me an example of a genre that you feel one cannot use D&D for?

(I probably can use D&D for it.)

Warping DND via homebrew doesn't count, and if you're satisfied otherwise with the idiosyncracies (ranging from the benign to the malignant) that results from cramming DND into the wrong genre hole, then you're not actually the sort of person Im talking about.

Like Ive personally used 5e as an ad hoc system to run a short scifi one shot for some kids. They had fun and what I used from 5e didn't really clash as it was all just barebones mechanics thrown around on the fly.

But if one spends an egregious amount of time trying to graft scifi onto 5e, practically writing an entirely new game in the process, thats the sort of thing Im talking about, and when people in turn do it with other genres, and then start complaining when it doesn't work, thats when we have an issue.

Ive never seen someone have their jimmies rustled if their scifi homebrew doesn't work, but Ive seen plenty that get really frustrated trying to cram in anime, mythic fantasy, and all these other things that just don't blend well with what DND actually is. SSEF is a genre unto itself more or less created wholesale by DND, and it is not a generic fantasy skeleton that just anything can be grafted onto without considerable work towards changing the bones.

Thats one of the biggest reasons I started writing my own game, because 5e completely exhausted what it can provide towards the experience Im looking for without extensive homebrew that, if implemented, would make it a different game altogether anyway. Same reason why Pathfinder wasn't a replacement; Id have rewrite so much of that game itd be a fools errand.

The fact that DCC (and now also XCrawl) have managed to fill the "I need something to actually play in the meantime" void is because it goes farther than DND did at capturing what I, and my group, wants out of these games.

 

[Yaarel]

Ive never seen someone have their jimmies rustled if their scifi homebrew doesn't work, but Ive seen plenty that get really frustrated trying to cram in anime, mythic fantasy, and all these other things that just don't blend well with what DND actually is. SSEF is a genre unto itself more or less created wholesale by DND, and it is not a generic fantasy skeleton that just anything can be grafted onto without considerable work towards changing the bones.

Thats one of the biggest reasons I started writing my own game, because 5e completely exhausted what it can provide towards the experience Im looking for without extensive homebrew that, if implemented, would make it a different game altogether anyway. Same reason why Pathfinder wasn't a replacement; Id have rewrite so much of that game itd be a fools errand.

The fact that DCC (and now also XCrawl) have managed to fill the "I need something to actually play in the meantime" void is because it goes farther than DND did at capturing what I, and my group, wants out of these games.

What is "SSEF"? [Edit: Ah. Probably: "Sword & Sorcery x Epic Fantasy"]

Anime is easy to do in 5e. Heh, if anything, too many grognards complain there is too much anime in their Tolkien-esque Conan-esque D&D.

I use 5e for Norse traditions. 5e works fine for Norsesque mythic.

I use 5e for my near-future (AI, supertech, transhuman) scifi.

Generally speaking, new backgrounds, species, spells, and magic items, can represent almost anything in almost any genre. Even to modify a subclass is relatively easy, such as for the Paladin, Smite dealing Force damage (psi flavor) or Thunder-Lightning (storm flavor). None of these are a change to the 5e gaming engine.

Perhaps the only difficulty I have with 5e is interaction among different orders of magnitude. Like a Human who can lift 500 pounds versus a machine that can lift 500 tons. But this is more about design elegance, than pragmatic playability.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Tell you what. You build your subclass version and see how that goes, and if it makes everyone happy I won't bother building a class in 2024.

I don’t think I mentioned a subclass? My idea isn’t to use a subclass.

 

[Clint_L]

And, as was shown, that wizard often cast spells OTHER than damage.

But I find this interesting. I was challenging the idea that "we can't count AOEs because they are artificial and I can craft the opposite experience" but now the issue is being shifted to... whatever this argument is supposed to be. So, what? AOEs are fair game now but all DnD games must conform to Critical Role, and therefore AOEs aren't as powerful as we are saying?



And you shift the goals yet again. See, this is really fascinating in its own way. The original point that was brought up was "Martials are the single best damage dealers in the game, casters can't compete at raw damage output" and now it is "Well, martial classes can hold their own, they aren't useless".

Sure, martial classes don't absolutely suck at dealing damage. Never claimed they did. But Casters can deal basically the same or better damage, and they have hundreds of additional options that pure martials can't touch. But we get bogged down on this point about damage every time, because people insist that martials have an untouchable lead that can never be surmounted and THAT makes them the kings of combat, and if show otherwise? We manipulated things to make them seem bad, and if we just believe they suck at everything then we are just misers.

No, the original point that was made, which I have quoted repeatedly, was, once again:

Again, as I said earlier. Track it. Actually do the math. Track your next 20 rounds of combat. Area attacks deal total damage, not single, so, it's not fair to compare a single target - you have to talk about total damage. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that your casters are number 1. Every time.

So don't accuse me of moving the goal posts. That's what you are doing. I have referred directly back to that quote repeatedly in my responses. Nor did I state:

"we can't count AOEs because they are artificial and I can craft the opposite experience"

So don't put quotation marks around your straw man version of my argument, as if you are quoting me when you are just making stuff up. Thank you.

My argument, which I have made very plainly, repeatedly, is that contrary to the challenge issued by Hussar, quoted above, casters cannot be "number 1. Every time." That when we look at actual records of games, for which I used Critical Role because there is a large sample that has been meticulously tracked, we see that casters are rarely the top damage dealers, and when they are it is typically because of AoE.

If you don't like the Critical Role example, please, present some evidence of your own. From actual play, that can be verified, not an imaginary scenario designed to support your argument - anyone can do that. If your hypothesis is strong, then it should stand up to objective evidence.

Having presented actual evidence, not made up evidence, I stand by my assertion that martial classes are the primary damage dealers in most situations. Nor have I disputed that casters are more versatile, though your claim that they have "hundreds of additional options" is confusing. Do you mean in aggregate - like all casters put together? Or one caster with hundreds of options, which doesn't seem possible.

Setting aside hyperbole, are we talking all casters/caster sub-classes, including partial casters + sub-classes, and all martial classes+sub-classes? Or is this really a wizards vs. fighters thing, again?

 

[bloodtide]

So D&D can be done at high levels.

But you HAVE to "stick it" to the magic characters the SAME way it's done to mundane characters. To be blunt: tell a player of a magic based character that for an encounter or whole game session they can do very little or even mostly nothing.

There IS a version of D&D that did show us the Way: BECMI. So in Ye Old Edition, every 5 levels was a new Tier. And most of all the focus of the game play changed to keep the challenge at "11" and most of all smack down the magic using characters.

For a made up example in the spirit of the rules:

The 14th level Adventure: The Castle Out of Time. So in this adventure the PCs go to a castle in a time bubble 3,000 years in the past to a primitive world. And the time travel rule is simple: nothing that has not been invented yet can exist/work in the time. So right at the top, like 99% of all the spellcasters spells can not be cast as they won't be invented for more then 2,000 years. Though this does leave the door open to PLAYER creativity as they might find away around the restriction. Or maybe discover some lost 'past' magic. Or maybe something else clever. And yes the mundanes are effected....but not as much. The generic fighter can pick up a club and do fine bashing foes. But sure the super specialized one trick pony "sword master" is screwed. On the other hand....the monk ("mystic" ) is not effected...

The above is a PERFECT 14th level BECMI type adventure......but it does require that the DM look the players of the spellcasting characters in the eye and say "that's the way the d20 rolls".

 

[Yaarel]

So D&D can be done at high levels.

But you HAVE to "stick it" to the magic characters the SAME way it's done to mundane characters. To be blunt: tell a player of a magic based character that for an encounter or whole game session they can do very little or even mostly nothing.

There IS a version of D&D that did show us the Way: BECMI. So in Ye Old Edition, every 5 levels was a new Tier. And most of all the focus of the game play changed to keep the challenge at "11" and most of all smack down the magic using characters.

For a made up example in the spirit of the rules:

The 14th level Adventure: The Castle Out of Time. So in this adventure the PCs go to a castle in a time bubble 3,000 years in the past to a primitive world. And the time travel rule is simple: nothing that has not been invented yet can exist/work in the time. So right at the top, like 99% of all the spellcasters spells can not be cast as they won't be invented for more then 2,000 years. Though this does leave the door open to PLAYER creativity as they might find away around the restriction. Or maybe discover some lost 'past' magic. Or maybe something else clever. And yes the mundanes are effected....but not as much. The generic fighter can pick up a club and do fine bashing foes. But sure the super specialized one trick pony "sword master" is screwed. On the other hand....the monk ("mystic" ) is not effected...

The above is a PERFECT 14th level BECMI type adventure......but it does require that the DM look the players of the spellcasting characters in the eye and say "that's the way the d20 rolls".

What is the point of reaching level 20, if the features available to every class are the same features that they already have at level 10?

It seems obvious, if players want to stay in a "low magic" setting, then dont advance to level 20.

Stretch out the advancement from level 1 to 12 longer.

It is more useful when the high tier Fighter class design acquires more noncombat features. Use the spellcasters as the gauge.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Then you get the Power problem. Take Thantos. By the start of Infinity War he could defeat the Avengers with just a pinky finger wiggle. Why does he not do this. One wiggle and they all turn into bubbles: Remember how easily he took out the Guardians of the Galaxy?

When Thanos confronts the Avengers in Infinity War, it's to get the Mind stone, and since using the Reality stone is likely taxing on the mind, and he just came from fighting a long battle, he probably has to pace himself to avoid possibly breaking himself mentally while trying to incorporate the Mind stone or afterwards while attempting the snap.

 

[James Gasik]

I mean, sure, fair enough. LotR Middle Earth is NOT what a 20th level campaign looks like.

And that's the other side of the problem.

We have so few actual examples of what a Tier 4 or Tier 5 campaign should look like. I mean, Tier 1-4? We've got scads of examples, from Against the Giants or any of the 5e Adventure Paths. In genre fiction, most of the big names are pretty square in there too - A Song of Fire and Ice, Lord of the Rings, Tad William's Dragonbone Chair, etc. Even Harry Potter, really, is mostly Tier 1-4, although a much higher magic level of course.

When you get into Tier 4 and 5, there really aren't a lot of good examples in genre fiction or in the game. Which rolls back around to the problem of what to do with non-casters at that point. There's all sorts of parts contributing to the problem.

Let's see, high tier fantasy settings.

Chronicles of Amber (Roger Zelazny)
Codex of Alara maybe? (Jim Butcher)
Lensman, in the "sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" sort of way (E.E. "Doc" Smith).
The Dying Earth (Jack Vance)
The Eternal Champion (Michael Moorcock)
Death Gate Cycle (Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman)

 

[bloodtide]

When Thanos confronts the Avengers in Infinity War, it's to get the Mind stone, and since using the Reality stone is likely taxing on the mind, and he just came from fighting a long battle, he probably has to pace himself to avoid possibly breaking himself mentally while trying to incorporate the Mind stone or afterwards while attempting the snap.

Right, you can make up whatever whatever to "explain" it. But it still won't make sense.

Like why did not ONE heroic Avenger just put on the gauntlet and snap their fingers? Yea, they would have died....but so what? They would have saved the day.

And WHY did Captain Marvel not just put it on? She is the Most Powerful in the Universe, right? She is like ten times more powerful then Thanos, right? She could have done the snap and ended the movie as soon as she got it from Spider-Man.