D&D 5E Martials v Casters...I still don't *get* it.

[Aldarc]

Damn right... After giving 4e a go for a few sessions.

Though you’ll notice I restricted my responses to 3e and 5e... that I’ve been playing since it’s inception.

Way to try gatekeep the conversation though.

That was not my intention, but if you wanna make veiled attacks, then there is little reason to continue discussing this. Have a nice day.

 

[DnD Warlord]

I don’t think anyone would bregrudge someone coming up to our their own homebrew class.

From my point of view, I just don’t think it adds a weight to the idea that there is a Martial - Caster disparity.

One of several criticisms of 4e was that it homogenized all classes into the same kind of style and it didn’t feel materially different playing a wizard or a fighter. I can see that. You seem to see it as a feature though.

I can see why you don’t want the fighter as is taken away..... but a new class, warlord battle mind war blade sword sage what ever you want to call it could (by WoTC) fill this gap

 

[Undrave]

Here's my overall stance. Combat balance is not really an issue in 5e. The out of combat utility of most characters who are not spellcasters is more limited, but I view that as largely a side effect of bounded accuracy's impact on the skill system. A 15th level fighter is barely better at Athleticism than a first level one. Cannot really run faster, lift more, or meaningfully impose more force to anything except their blades. I think someone who is reliably facing down pit fiends should feel like that outside of combat.

On the flipside I feel like magic (especially "plot" disruptive magic) has been overly nerfed. I would like high level characters to actually feel like they are worthy of the sorts of adventures the game seems to want them to go on.

I wonder if the plan was to add an 'Epic Module' that went from lv 21 to lv 30 later on in the edition when modularity was still hyped up, but they then decided to give up on?

 

[Gammadoodler]

You’ve missed the point that anything your martial can conceive of doing is fair game. Topple a statue or bookcase onto your enemies? Rip down a curtain to entangle your foe? Pick up a handful of sand and fling it in your enemies eyes?

If you can’t do these at your table, the problem is your table.

Uhm, no it isn't. All your described actions fall squarely outside of existing mechanics, in the same way that jumping to the moon or lifting a castle do.

Their existence as 'options' is not equivalent to explicitly defined spells with mechanical support which take up half the book.

 

[Oofta]

There were two points I made: one, you must take the attack action to grapple or shove (so you’re still taking the attack action). Not important, just snark. If the argument is you don’t have to take the attack action, you can shove, well, technically that is still the attack action. Ha ha ha. Also: you can’t sub these for attacks gained via bonus actions, which sort of sucks in some cases. Probably necessary so opportunity attacks did not become stupid.

Two, Mark (as well as Cleaving Through Creatures) are not in the PHB and while I don’t know how widely used they are, I wouldn’t guess they are common.

And a third point: you have all of these at level 1, your options don’t change much.

Grapple and shove are attacks which can be part of your attack action should not be controversial at all.

Whether every fighter needs more options is an opinion I simply disagree with. If you want someone that slaps on armor and wades into the fight while casting spells or using supernatural abilities you have multiple options with subclasses, barbarians, paladins and so on. If you want maneuvers you can do that. Want to be better at being a defender? Take a cavalier so you can mark with polearm master and/or sentinel to maintain focus on your PC. Want to really make a mess of things? Multiclass. Want to talk endlessly about how awesome your PC is on a spreadsheet? Hexblade.

You don't need complexity for every class. The label we put on classes is artificial anyway, if you didn't know what some classes were called people who aren't familiar with the system wouldn't know the difference. Put another way: if you open up more "tactical complexity" (whatever that means) than we already have to fighters I think you would have to change the structure of combat. That would have massive ripple effects throughout the system.

 

[Undrave]

You’ve missed the point that anything your martial can conceive of doing is fair game. Topple a statue or bookcase onto your enemies? Rip down a curtain to entangle your foe? Pick up a handful of sand and fling it in your enemies eyes?

If you can’t do these at your table, the problem is your table.

And we're back to 'DM may I?' while Spellcasters still have control over their options. A spellcaster can ALSO use Pocket Sand against anyone just as well. Heck, even better if they have Mage Hand to do it at range!

Though Pocket Sand is a good item to keep if you're a Thief for your Bonus interaction!

 

[Undrave]

Grapple and shove are attacks which can be part of your attack action should not be controversial at all.

Whether every fighter needs more options is an opinion I simply disagree with. If you want someone that slaps on armor and wades into the fight while casting spells or using supernatural abilities you have multiple options with subclasses, barbarians, paladins and so on. If you want maneuvers you can do that. Want to be better at being a defender? Take a cavalier so you can mark with polearm master and/or sentinel to maintain focus on your PC. Want to really make a mess of things? Multiclass. Want to talk endlessly about how awesome your PC is on a spreadsheet? Hexblade.

You don't need complexity for every class. The label we put on classes is artificial anyway, if you didn't know what some classes were called people who aren't familiar with the system wouldn't know the difference. Put another way: if you open up more "tactical complexity" (whatever that means) than we already have to fighters I think you would have to change the structure of combat. That would have massive ripple effects throughout the system.

I think the bigger problems is that most purely Martial characters don't get new options opening up at later level, they just get better at what they've been doing since early level. Maneuvers are great but ALL of them are available at level 3. Nothing develops as a reflection of the kind of threat high level characters can face whereas spellcasters get options to face new challenges.

I don't think we needed like, 9 levels of Maneuvers like with spells, but maybe two more tier would have been enough. Maneuvers that cost more Dice starting around lv 10 and then again around level 15, give or take. Probably a smaller selection than the level 3 list, mind you.

 

[Aldarc]

I think the bigger problems is that most purely Martial characters don't get new options opening up at later level, they just get better at what they've been doing since early level. Maneuvers are great but ALL of them are available at level 3. Nothing develops as a reflection of the kind of threat high level characters can face whereas spellcasters get options to face new challenges.

I don't think we needed like, 9 levels of Maneuvers like with spells, but maybe two more tier would have been enough. Maneuvers that cost more Dice starting around lv 10 and then again around level 15, give or take. Probably a smaller selection than the level 3 list, mind you.

Incidentally, Mike Mearls designed a "Ritual Warrior" class for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved for the 3e d20 system. It was similar to the Battlemaster, except it had four tiers of combat maneuvers. So in some regards, it was more akin to a 1/3 caster, except these were all martial abilities.

 

[FrozenNorth]

One thing I don't understand about 6 encounters being a "slog" ... if they are then isn't the entire game a slog? I mean, presumably for each level, you have more than 6 encounters (after 1st), right? For every level you have between 6 and 16 encounters if you leveled based on XP according to this site.

Eh, I don’t think it is that cut and dried.

Some DMs cut down on encounters for verisimilitude reasons (your 7th level party investigating a small town just happens to come across 8 encounters CR 4 to 10).

Some DMs want to keep the story bits coming quick and snappy, so adding extra encounters to extend the arc is a negative.

Some DMs vary pacing during the campaign, but find that while the standard DMG pacing works for dungeons, it doesn’t work in other circumstances.

Some DMs might be great at creating fun dynamic encounters when they are only creating 3 or 4 of them, but ask them to make 8 in a row and the quality suffers.

In all those cases, holding the DMs to a 6 to 8 encounter adventuring day does lead to encounters that are slogs, while a lighter pacing schedule (that is still quicker than gritty realism) would lead to an improved game.

Also, if a 6 encounter, 2 short rest is your MEDIAN, you are still looking at several 9-10 encounter days.

 

[ph0rk]

You’ve missed the point that anything your martial can conceive of doing is fair game

At a table with that sort of flexibility, mage hand and invisibility, to say nothing of silent image and its upgrades are tremendously powerful. There's really no way around that.

The classes with better imagination tools built in have a massive edge at a table that allows that sort of stuff, and once again most martials fall behind.