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

[Emberashh]

So martials ratchet down the effectiveness of the party so much that an all-caster party would be a stress point?

Is there a particular reason you responded as though this was a gotcha argument?

Its not some secret all caster parties are a pain in the ass to DM for, and its not even "effectiveness" thats the issue but practically unlimited resources to turn off game mechanics at will.

 

[Remathilis]

Magic of song magic of the soul magic of the mind but all still similar in spells. And sell yourself for power

So despite similar types of spells, each caster gets their magic from a different source of power. If those sources of power weren't defined beyond "mysterious forces" could you still define a difference between them without resorting to mechanics?

 

[James Gasik]

I ask players to give me a head's up if they are planning to multi-class so we can work it into the story. Waking up one morning and suddenly being a martial arts expert doesn't make sense.

Due to a lot of people in my area coming into 5e from AL, I'm used to most players not having really thought about their backstories much. So I'm fairly laissez-faire about this, and don't require very deep explanations for why someone wishes to gain a new class level. Even Feats, if you think about it, imply some training that cannot appear ex nihilo. Your Fighter who has only ever used a sword suddenly hits level 6 and decides to pick up Polearm Mastery, for example.

There's no mechanical reason to deny them, but the narrative has to assume they did something, even if before they began to adventure, to train with a polearm. After all, Fighters come with proficiency in all weapons, so they must have at least handled a polearm once in their lives.

In fact, a lot of Feats are like this already. Taking Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, Gourmand, Inspiring Leader; these are all things that cannot come from nothing. So I don't think adding a Feat that says "exposure to Barkskin gives you an AC buff when you're in sunlight" should be too big of a deal in most campaigns- if your DM is a stickler for the narrative, they'd already have one with the assumptions of other Feats.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It’s not a disregard but i know that i can much more easily create narrative for classes than i can create mechanics for them, the narrative of if my fighter is powered by muscle, spirit, divine blood, genetic spider bite or supersoldier serum doesn’t affect game balance one jot in 99% of circumstances and people can and will freely revise that part for a character if they wish, fighers not being able to overcome high level obstacles is a mechanical issue which needs a mechanical solution

edit: and the narrative part of an RPG is just as much if not more about what my character chooses to do with their powers rather than how they happened to get them.

All true, but the book still needs to say something, and that something ought to be consistent with the default assumptions of the setting.

 

[HammerMan]

So despite similar types of spells, each caster gets their magic from a different source of power. If those sources of power weren't defined beyond "mysterious forces" could you still define a difference between them without resorting to mechanics?

I actually had to make it up. The game just gives them all spell casting. It might as well be “mysterious forces”.

 

[Incenjucar]

Is there a particular reason you responded as though this was a gotcha argument?

Its not some secret all caster parties are a pain in the ass to DM for, and its not even "effectiveness" thats the issue but practically unlimited resources to turn off game mechanics at will.

The question mark was not sarcastic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So I app

So the game does not supply these. You do. This is equally possible with fantastic martial abilities without codifying it it the game.

I consider a game incomplete if it does not provide these things. Thus, WotC 5e is incomplete as written, and would be more so if it included a mythic martial that did not address these same things.

 

[James Gasik]

Magic of song magic of the soul magic of the mind but all still similar in spells. And sell yourself for power

It's not even necessarily songs, since the Bard can also derive power from just regular speech.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Of course you need more information to interpret this. If you made decisions based on something like this without digging in, you would probably make a lot of uniformed decisions.

I think they also have data that says most games are played at lower levels. The Fighter is much closer/better relative to other classes at lower levels. Could this be a part of these numbers?

This tells us nothing about how an addition of a separate mythic martial class would fare. Perhaps if there was mythic martial class, it would cannibalize the Fighter numbers to 2%? You know, like the iphone. Most people were pretty happy with their flip phone at the time.

I know I loved my flip phone. Still miss it sometimes.

 

[James Gasik]

I consider a game incomplete if it does not provide these things. Thus, WotC 5e is incomplete as written, and would be more so if it included a mythic martial that did not address these same things.

Although, thinking about it, perhaps the reason these things are not provided is so that each campaign setting (and each DM) would have the freedom to come up with their own explanations.

Certainly magic is supposed to function different between Toril, Krynn, and Athas, even if the mechanics are essentially the same.