D&D 5E Martials should just get free feats

[EzekielRaiden]

This is a trap and a mistake!

If you add something that both a wizard and a fighter get, and using that feature is an alternative to (say) casting a spell, this can make fighters better than they where but have almost no impact on wizard capabilities!

If it's an alternative to casting a spell, and both Fighter and Wizard get it, then it's something that allows the Wizard to save a spell slot for something else later. It powers them up both equally.

In short, in a game where some PCs have "I can change reality with magic", making skills better for everyone actually closes the utility gap. Even if wizards can also use skills.

No, it doesn't. It lets Wizards save their spells for the most reality-breaking stuff they can do. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make the generic stuff better. We should! You won't get any argument from me on that.

The size of the gap matters. Imagine a game where everyone had near-wizard spellcasting, near-rogue skills, etc. And the wizard got slightly better spellcasting, the rogue got slightly better skills, and the fighter got 4 attacks per turn. The lower gap in areas besides attacks per turn reduces (and maybe reverses) the gap between fighters and other classes.

I am belabouring this point because if you hold it as an axiom, you miss entire ways to solve design problems and you discard viable fixes as irrelevant.

I certainly grant that the size of the gap matters. But even with 5e's efforts to fix the absolutely, unforgivably enormous gap in 3e, it remains too great to bridge in this way. We must, in fact, actually add to the Fighter's class-derived, non-combat capabilities. It is perfectly okay (in fact, I would absolutely love it) for us to also, simultaneously, raise the floor for everyone. But raising the floor cannot fix the problem--both for theoretical reasons (the size of the gap is such that raising the floor far enough to make the gap irrelevant would also make "being a Fighter" irrelevant) and for purely practical reasons (even I know that a large number of fans, both classic and contemporary, would not accept that much generic power.)

So yes, background skills actually boost the fighter more than they boost the rogue. Despite the fact the rogue has access to the skill as well. Having more baseline options to interact with the world boosts non-spellcasters more than it does spellcasters. Despite the fact that they are available to spellcasters as well.

How? You haven't actually said how. You've just said that it does. How? Why is it that skills being strong doesn't improve everyone the same amount, and thus preserve the gap between things?

The size of the gap matters, yes. But there absolutely, positively isn't going to be enough power handed out to everyone to make it comparatively tiny.

If you want numbers (and for the love of God, I hope no one takes this as some kind of attempt at objectivity, because people have tried to skewer me on that before): I consider the Fighter to be a 10, and the Wizard to be a 1000. Something that raises the power of everything by even 500 would simultaneously leave the Fighter still overshadowed by more than half (1500 vs 510), and completely overshadow everything that being a "Fighter" is, which is frankly worse.

In both cases, the diminishing marginal returns kicks in, and reduces the benefit to the "richer" party.

Only if the starting gap is small enough. This is, in effect, an infinity argument: when everyone's power level approaches infinity, all finite gaps in power become irrelevant.

But we are not in, nor even close to, the kinds of numbers where that occurs. We are not looking at one class being a 10 and the other being an 8, such that adding +10 to each would cut the gap relatively in half (a gap of 20% beforehand, and 10% after.) Nor is it even remotely feasible to add enough power to these generic features to make the gap shrink that small: there's absolutely no way any "classic" D&D fan would ever accept a world where pure skill rolls and other absolutely, perfectly universal structures can gain power equal to what a current full spellcaster can put out with their spell slots. Even I balk at the suggestion, and I'm one of the most anti-caster-supremacy people you'll find around here.

And if enough of it is done, the fighter doesn't have to be that much better at combat to make up for being poorer in other areas.

Sure--but being "a Fighter" would be equally reduced to an irrelevancy, and the resulting game would not be acceptable to even a plurality of D&D fans.

 

[NotAYakk]

If it's an alternative to casting a spell, and both Fighter and Wizard get it, then it's something that allows the Wizard to save a spell slot for something else later. It powers them up both equally.

No it does not.

Ok, I'll be concrete.

I mean, suppose there is some problem that requires a Wizard to solve. Like flight.

If both Wizards and Fighters can make a DC 20 athletics check to fly, with a consequence if you get below 10, this makes Fighters better compared to Wizards.

Even if the Wizard could invest in athletics proficiency (and strength) and save the spell slot.

I certainly grant that the size of the gap matters. But even with 5e's efforts to fix the absolutely, unforgivably enormous gap in 3e, it remains too great to bridge in this way. We must, in fact, actually add to the Fighter's class-derived, non-combat capabilities. It is perfectly okay (in fact, I would absolutely love it) for us to also, simultaneously, raise the floor for everyone. But raising the floor cannot fix the problem--both for theoretical reasons (the size of the gap is such that raising the floor far enough to make the gap irrelevant would also make "being a Fighter" irrelevant) and for purely practical reasons (even I know that a large number of fans, both classic and contemporary, would not accept that much generic power.)

I mean, I've used a 1 level fighter dip with a blade bard to basically be a fighter with Spellcasting utility. And it did give me capabilities that a pure wizard/spellcaster did not. So I have actual in-play evidence to the contrary; the features that Fighters get do make a difference in play.

How? You haven't actually said how. You've just said that it does. How? Why is it that skills being strong doesn't improve everyone the same amount, and thus preserve the gap between things?

The simple fact is the gap is a matter of ratio not a matter of distance.

The problem isn't "there are 3 cool things a wizard can do that a fighter cannot", and if you give both the wizard and fighter 100 more cool things they can both do that 3 cool thing gap will remain the same. The problem is there are 3 cool things a fighter can do and 6 that a wizard can do, which means the wizard has twice as many cool things to do as the fighter.

In one case 6-3 is the same as 16-13 and 106-103. But in the other, 6/3 is way different than 16/13 or 106/103.

This is one of the reasons why people patch over the difference between martials and spellcasters with magic items. Because both a wizard and a fighter can use winged boots, but the winged boots on the fighter close the gap more.

If you want numbers (and for the love of God, I hope no one takes this as some kind of attempt at objectivity, because people have tried to skewer me on that before): I consider the Fighter to be a 10, and the Wizard to be a 1000. Something that raises the power of everything by even 500 would simultaneously leave the Fighter still overshadowed by more than half (1500 vs 510), and completely overshadow everything that being a "Fighter" is, which is frankly worse.

Barring exploits like the magic missile exploits or a one fight per day novas or similar, 5e fighters are actually significantly better at putting out damage than Wizards are? What combos I do find to put out massive damage as wizards either require interesting rules interpretations or the like.

And with how tough 5e monsters are designed, HP damage is king. There aren't that many no-save-or-suck spells, and bashing through legendary resists against a magic resistant mundane weapon immune creature with proficiency in all saves is resource expensive.

The main point, however, is that your framework automatically ignores anything that adds to every PC and dismisses it as irrelevant and disallows it from consideration.

If your problem is that the gap is large, use that argument. "The extra proficiency doesn't matter because it is tiny next to what wizards do" is a different argument than "adding a proficiency to both wizards and fighters doesn't matter, because anything added to both cannot help fix the gap".

I'm holding the second argument is wrong. If you go and change your position to the first argument? Then you aren't addressing my objection, you are moving the goal posts.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The main point, however, is that your framework automatically ignores anything that adds to every PC and dismisses it as irrelevant and disallows it from consideration.

It's not disallowed from consideration. It's disallowed from consideration solely for the purpose of solving this problem by itself. Because, for the reasons I gave and you ignored, it can't actually do what you want it to do by itself. Not theoretically, and not practically.

Letting characters fly with any DC Acrobatics or Athletics check would never be acceptable to people actually playing the game (practical failure), and would trivialize both the Wizard's class features AND the Fighter's class features (theoretical failure.)

If your problem is that the gap is large, use that argument. "The extra proficiency doesn't matter because it is tiny next to what wizards do" is a different argument than "adding a proficiency to both wizards and fighters doesn't matter, because anything added to both cannot help fix the gap".

I'm holding the second argument is wrong. If you go and change your position to the first argument? Then you aren't addressing my objection, you are moving the goal posts.

I see your objection as irrelevant, because it's the ultimate conclusion--doing X thing, on its own, is not adequate to solve the problem--regardless of the reason why that is true.

Like, this is like saying that the fact that Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem had to be changed on a critical part, means that the fundamental argument is "moving the goalposts." It's not. If there's a different reason why the fundamental claim at issue is true, what does it matter which reason one argues? Who cares if you can't ride from London through Oxford to Cardiff, if you can instead ride from London through Chichester to Cardiff? It's getting to Cardiff that matters, not the road taken to get there.

Separately, however, with the theoretical and practical limits forced upon 5e's design, I still maintain that "adding proficiency to both wizards and fighters doesn't matter, because anything added to both cannot individually fix the gap." The "individually" you left out is the critical bit. It's not that it cannot help in ANY way, because I already granted you that. But by itself, with 5e's design limitations, it's not enough--and never will be. Your argument requires that we be able to add to both things without limit. If there's a limit beyond which we cannot add things for any reason, whatever that reason may be, then it is quite possible that we reach that limit and a gap remains. That's exactly what I've argued to you.

"You can make the relative gap between two constants arbitrarily small by adding the right value to both of them" requires that you be able to add arbitrarily large values. But if there's a maximum you can add, the statement is false. E.g., if you can only add +1000 maximum, and the two numbers are 10 and 500, then you can certainly make the gap much better (10/500 = 0.002, 1010/1500 = 0.67333...), but you cannot get it smaller than 0.9--not even close. 0.67333... is in fact the best you can possibly do.

Further, as the numbers show, you would need to add more than four times that much (4400) to make it work: 4410/4900 = 0.9 exactly. That means adding over 440 times the original power value contributed by the Fighter class, or (as I said) reducing the contribution from being a Fighter to triviality. Now, perhaps the starting gap is smaller, say by a factor of ten (50 vs 10, as opposed to 500 vs 10.) You'd still need to add a ton: 351 added to both values, a "mere" 31.5 times what the Fighter itself brings. Even if we make it a measly 20 vs 10, meaning the Wizard is merely twice as powerful as the Fighter, we would still need to add +80 to both values, since 90/100 = 0.9 exactly, which means the Fighter's original contributions are now only one-ninth of its total prowess. For one final example, let's drop it to only W=15, F=10--Wizards being only 50% stronger. To get that to line up, we must increase both numbers by +35--meaning the contribution from the Fighter's own class is still less than a quarter (10/45 = 22.22...%) Being a Fighter is effectively irrelevant for what you're capable of--and being a Wizard isn't much better at only three-tenths contributed by class itself (15/50 = 3/10.)

If we are limited in how much we can add, it is in fact quite possible that we cannot bridge the gap solely through adding an equal amount to both numbers. Even if it is possible, unless the gap is already quite small to begin with, adding enough to trivialize the gap, for a very generous definition of "trivialize" (making Wizard no more than 10% stronger than Fighter) means we must necessarily trivialize the contribution coming from the Fighter itself.

In a vacuum, where no such practical considerations and theoretical limits apply, yes, adding to both things could work. But we don't have that kind of liberty with the design of D&D, be it 5e or any other edition.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If both Wizards and Fighters can make a DC 20 athletics check to fly, with a consequence if you get below 10, this makes Fighters better compared to Wizards.

Even if the Wizard could invest in athletics proficiency (and strength) and save the spell slot.

lets go with 2 5 person parties....

party 1 (all caster) has a bladsinger wizard, a war cleric, a college of sword bard, and a hexblade multi into paliden

party 2 (mostly non casters) has a rouge arcane trickster and a gloom ranger... but then a fighter (champion) and a radiant soul monk

what characters get a new option... all 8
what character loose an option NONE

so the bladsinger war cleric and bard are still full casters and the arcane trick rogue is still a 1/3 caster with all the options they had before BUT now they all have a new "make a DC XX skill to do Y"

I mean, I've used a 1 level fighter dip with a blade bard to basically be a fighter with Spellcasting utility. And it did give me capabilities that a pure wizard/spellcaster did not. So I have actual in-play evidence to the contrary; the features that Fighters get do make a difference in play.

I have seen people take 1, 2 and even 3 level dips on casters into non casters to buff hp and get something like action surge (infact I joked a few times on here that a wizard 9/fighter (elddritch knight) 3was better then any non full caster in the game with action surge, 10th level casting on a 12th level character and if you did the 1st dip at 1st level a maxed d10 hp and prof in con saves)

The problem isn't "there are 3 cool things a wizard can do that a fighter cannot", and if you give both the wizard and fighter 100 more cool things they can both do that 3 cool thing gap will remain the same. The problem is there are 3 cool things a fighter can do and 6 that a wizard can do, which means the wizard has twice as many cool things to do as the fighter.

lets talk about choices at creation and choice round to round

a 1st level wizard has 6 spells known and 3 cantrips known can prep 4(assuming a 16 int) spells per day and has 2 spell slots... the fighter has second wind and a fighting style... not the same but not REALLY far off.

level them both up to level 5, the fighter now has action surge (the best feature they get) and a second attack (the weird class feature that a bunch can get so not really unquie) the wizard got 8 more spells known that can be now 2nd and 3rd level spells and another cantrip. spells lots are now 4/3/2 and you have arcane recovery 2

both got a feat/asi and subclass


level up to 9th and this gets worse... until level 11 the fighter is making 2 attacks and has action surge, where most other melee characters are makeing 2 attacks (including full casters) they do get at 9th a reroll of a save that helps.

over a wizard a fighter has on average 2 more hp per level, over other full casters (bard, hexblade, cleric ect) that drops to 1.

In one case 6-3 is the same as 16-13 and 106-103. But in the other, 6/3 is way different than 16/13 or 106/103.

but 6-3 is first level... full casters get more and more each level and fighters don't. look at the above example only to 5th 8 more spells known 7 more spells per day plus arcane recovery and an extra cantrip....

you give them 100 and at 1st level that is 103-106 at fith its 104-119 the full caster still breaks out (although it may be slower)

Barring exploits like the magic missile exploits or a one fight per day novas or similar, 5e fighters are actually significantly better at putting out damage than Wizards are? What combos I do find to put out massive damage as wizards either require interesting rules interpretations or the like.

equally optimized fighters and wizards (that want to deal damage) is not a massive diffrence... I did it out last year and a combat spec wizard was around 80% the damage and 95% the tankability of a fighter BUT still had a few misc tricks

And with how tough 5e monsters are designed, HP damage is king.

unless you have hold person, or Tasha's laugh or sleep or any number of other Sod or Sos

There aren't that many no-save-or-suck spells, and bashing through legendary resists against a magic resistant mundane weapon immune creature with proficiency in all saves is resource expensive.

I limited myself to ones of first and second level and I found several.... the most legendary resistence I have seen (I may have missed some) is 3/day... at what level can you throw 6? oh 5th level

 

[NotAYakk]

So, your problem isn't "adding stuff to both fighters and wizards has no impact", it is "wizards are way too strong".

If you want to argue "wizards are way too strong" go ahead. Just don't argue it with me? That isn't what I am taking about. So if your disagreement with me is "wizards are way to strong", you aren't talking to someone who is talking about that. You might as well be talking about how tall horses are, or what the best color of car is.

I'm arguing that adding stuff to both fighters and wizards at the same time impacts the balance of fighters and wizards. It was a claim made, I said it was nonsense, and the only responses I've gotten are moving goal posts.

Just please, don't make nonsense claims. I don't care if they support your conclusions or not.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, your problem isn't "adding stuff to both fighters and wizards has no impact", it is "wizards are way too strong".

I;m not sure strong is the right word... and it;s not limited to wizard, but close enough

If you want to argue "wizards are way too strong" go ahead.

again that was your words not mine... I'm not even sure where strong comes from.

I have used the word versitile, or complex but not strong.

Just don't argue it with me?

if you don't want to talk to people about things posting in public discussion is an odd way to go about it

That isn't what I am taking about. So if your disagreement with me is "wizards are way to strong", you aren't talking to someone who is talking about that. You might as well be talking about how tall horses are, or what the best color of car is.

except again, YOU came up with "wizards are too strong" not me.

I'm arguing that adding stuff to both fighters and wizards at the same time impacts the balance of fighters and wizards.

and as I said to a limited extent for very low level it will.

10 vs 3 is a difference of 7
47 vs 9 is a difference of 38
116 vs 15 is a difference of 111

adding 50 to all thos number starts at 60 vs 53 but ends at 166 vs 65
adding 100 to all those numbers starts at 110 vs 102 and ends at 216 vs 115

sooner or later you need to add JUST to the lower number not the higher.

It was a claim made, I said it was nonsense, and the only responses I've gotten are moving goal posts.

no goal post moving

Just please, don't make nonsense claims. I don't care if they support your conclusions or not.

then lets compaire fighter and wizard...

fighter over 20 levels gets 2hp per level more then wizard
fighter gets 2 action surge and 1 second wind per short rest over wizard
fighter gets a bunch of armor and weapon profs over wizard
a fighter gets indomitable 3/day over wizard.
a fighter makes 4 attacks (although only at level 11+ is that more then other melee characters)

they both get a background, they both get a subclass so lets call those a wash
lets call that hp as 1 prof in weapons as 1 prof in armor as 1 fighting style as 1, 3 surges/second wind per short rest lets call 9 (so 2 short rests)indomitable 3 so that is 15... now how to count extra attack, is that 1 cantrip (it scales like 1) or is it 3 thins... lets go in the middle and call it 2 so that is 18

a full caster can prep 20+ caster mod (most likely 5 but atleast 3) spells so that is already just with prep spells more... but 22 spells per day recalling 10 on short rests so that is like 27ish... so is spell casting 23 or 27? lets call it 23... but wait how mayn spells known do they have 6+ 2 per level after 1st (44 known spells) 5 cantrips and 2 spell mastery 2 signature spells (basicly more cantrips)

of the 18 things the fighter they pick there fighting style and those two feat/asi teh rest are just given no choice. the full caster picks 49 spells (44 leveled 5 cantrip) then each day preps about half of them (23-25) to prep and on a short rest they get to pick what level of slots to recall.

wizard abilities scale, you can upcast spells, or just have a higher level version of the spell. Nothing really scales for a fighter, even when you pick the most complex subclass (weapon master) you get the same choice at level 17+ as you do at level 3.




so lets say we add 2 dozen tricks ANYONE can do. the wizard still has 50ish spells and some of those (the minority) are at will

 

[ECMO3]

equally optimized fighters and wizards (that want to deal damage) is not a massive diffrence... I did it out last year and a combat spec wizard was around 80% the damage and 95% the tankability of a fighter BUT still had a few misc tricks

I don't think this is true if you consider limited spells slots, subclass abilities and fighting style. Subclasses and fighting style for the most part boost damage or boost tankability or both while most wizard subclasses do not do that.

Wizards also can't do 95% of the tankability if they focus on damage. It really is either-or. They can do over 95% of the tankability if they focus on defense (probably over 100% on a bladesinger given equal constitution in tier 2), but their damage will suffer, because to keep the edge in tankability they need to use spells like blur instead of spells like shadowblade.

I limited myself to ones of first and second level and I found several.... the most legendary resistence I have seen (I may have missed some) is 3/day... at what level can you throw 6? oh 5th level

But that is 3 fails and enemies with legendaries are not going to take a long time to fail 3 times. For example you are fighting an aboleth (the lowest CR I could find with LR) and you have a 20 casting stat at level 8 for a DC of 16:

Most of your SOS spells are Wisdom, Int or Con which are +6, +8 and +6 respectively in both. So he has a 55% chance of making his Wisdom or Con save.

This means on average it will take you 8 rounds (and 8 spells) before he fails a single save against you. A damage dealing martial, assuming he is not killed or incapacitated, will typically kill an Aboleth in 8 rounds if he goes Nova.

Now having a Monk on hand or multiple casters with SOS spells shortens this significantly, but burning through legendaries is very difficult to do as a single caster.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, your problem isn't "adding stuff to both fighters and wizards has no impact", it is "wizards are way too strong".

If you want to argue "wizards are way too strong" go ahead. Just don't argue it with me? That isn't what I am taking about. So if your disagreement with me is "wizards are way to strong", you aren't talking to someone who is talking about that. You might as well be talking about how tall horses are, or what the best color of car is.

I'm arguing that adding stuff to both fighters and wizards at the same time impacts the balance of fighters and wizards. It was a claim made, I said it was nonsense, and the only responses I've gotten are moving goal posts.

Just please, don't make nonsense claims. I don't care if they support your conclusions or not.

I had assumed "wizards are way too strong' was already a known and accepted problem. Isn't that the very reason the thread exists? Isn't that the very reason the OP is saying "give martials free feats"?

I wasn't making these claims in a vacuum. I was making them in the context of...the conversation at hand. Which is centered on the idea that Wizards are (much) too strong and Fighters are not (anywhere near) strong enough.

 

[Clint_L]

Known and accepted problem? I don't agree that "wizards are way too strong." I think they are one of the stronger classes. So are fighters. Who are easily the most popular class in 5e, from everything we've seen. I think there are a few people on this forum who take every opportunity to argue for fighters and against wizards, but that isn't really evidence of anything, except that there are a few people with some strong opinions on the subject. Which, more power to 'em.

 

[FrogReaver]

No it does not.

Ok, I'll be concrete.

I mean, suppose there is some problem that requires a Wizard to solve. Like flight.

If both Wizards and Fighters can make a DC 20 athletics check to fly, with a consequence if you get below 10, this makes Fighters better compared to Wizards.

Even if the Wizard could invest in athletics proficiency (and strength) and save the spell slot.

I mean, I've used a 1 level fighter dip with a blade bard to basically be a fighter with Spellcasting utility. And it did give me capabilities that a pure wizard/spellcaster did not. So I have actual in-play evidence to the contrary; the features that Fighters get do make a difference in play.

The simple fact is the gap is a matter of ratio not a matter of distance.

The problem isn't "there are 3 cool things a wizard can do that a fighter cannot", and if you give both the wizard and fighter 100 more cool things they can both do that 3 cool thing gap will remain the same. The problem is there are 3 cool things a fighter can do and 6 that a wizard can do, which means the wizard has twice as many cool things to do as the fighter.

In one case 6-3 is the same as 16-13 and 106-103. But in the other, 6/3 is way different than 16/13 or 106/103.

This is one of the reasons why people patch over the difference between martials and spellcasters with magic items. Because both a wizard and a fighter can use winged boots, but the winged boots on the fighter close the gap more.

I agree with this principle, but in actual gam terms it's more like 12-0 or 15-3. While the later is a slight improvement for the fighter, it's still no where near the wizard. Like your thought is technically correct but real D&D doesn't start with the wizard/fighter ratio of cool things being anywhere near 6-3. It's Closer to 12-0 or possibly even more in the wizards favor.*

*To be noted - this is only after the wizard reaches a sufficient level.

Barring exploits like the magic missile exploits or a one fight per day novas or similar, 5e fighters are actually significantly better at putting out damage than Wizards are? What combos I do find to put out massive damage as wizards either require interesting rules interpretations or the like.

As an example. A wizard can have a single simulacrum of whatever fighter you have. That simulacrum alone can equal damage output of the fighter. After that a wizard can use a single 6th level slot for a Tasha's summon spell, getting 3 more attacks at a solid attack modifier, doing 14 damage per hit. Then the wizard can use a 3d10 (16.5 avg) firebolt with his action the rest of the encounter in addition to the simulacrum and tasha's summon undead. That's only 2 spells, both of which can likely last multiple encounters in a dungeon environment and the wizard is likely doubling the single target damage of the fighter. Also, there are combos like force cage combo'd with sickening radiance that simply end most monsters that fit inside the forcecage.

*Note simulacrum is a spell i think should be banned but it's still a large part of wizards perceived power.

And with how tough 5e monsters are designed, HP damage is king. There aren't that many no-save-or-suck spells, and bashing through legendary resists against a magic resistant mundane weapon immune creature with proficiency in all saves is resource expensive.

If you are talking solo monster encounters then sure. If you are talking a strong monster with help then the help can usually be far more easily controlled with wizard spells - which is a strong contribution to such an encounter even if a cantrip is only cast the rest of the time.

The main point, however, is that your framework automatically ignores anything that adds to every PC and dismisses it as irrelevant and disallows it from consideration.

I think people just aren't being nuanced enough. By the time you add all the nuances in, i think the point still falls flat as I noted above, but that's getting far more into specifics than the broader general statements that tend to make for better discussions IMO.

If your problem is that the gap is large, use that argument. "The extra proficiency doesn't matter because it is tiny next to what wizards do" is a different argument than "adding a proficiency to both wizards and fighters doesn't matter, because anything added to both cannot help fix the gap".

As you demonstrated yourself, the gap is still there, it's just the ratio that matters more. Which somewhat ironically takes us to your first statement about the gap too large for a single proficiency to fix.

I'm holding the second argument is wrong. If you go and change your position to the first argument? Then you aren't addressing my objection, you are moving the goal posts.

When your counter to point 2 immediately takes us to point 1 then it's not moving the goal posts to go there. You opened that door.