D&D 5E Merlin and Arthur or Batman and zatana

[Fanaelialae]

I won’t speak for other games, but in DnD fighter already have some help to get better at skills. Battle master has some maneuvers that can be applied to skill, new subclass often include an extra skill, and the extra feat the fighter get at 6 and 14 can be applied on skill improvement.
Surely 1DnD can make some additional improvement for that too.

But the main recurring complaint is always about « magic » that turn the tide of an encounter of any kind, and that fighter don’t have access to tide turning abilities.

Rerolling a skill or a save won’t ever compete to Wall of force, or a wild shape usage.
If I want to compete with Wall of force, I need a Wall of force, disguise it into a Plot point, a martial feat, or any other cinematic name, if I do tide turning ability, I have pass on the dark side and I’m now a magic user.

If you define magic user so broadly as to be someone who can influence the fiction at a narrative level, then you might be right.

If you define magic user in the more traditional manner (someone who casts spells) then you couldn't be more wrong.

I define MUs as the latter, but it seems like a lot of folks who are against improving the fighter use the former.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If I want to compete with Wall of force, I need a Wall of force, disguise it into a Plot point, a martial feat, or any other cinematic name, if I do tide turning ability, I have pass on the dark side and I’m now a magic user.

back in 3e (it might have been useing 3pp) a friend made a chain wielding fighter/rogue... he could flank with himself (I even wrote a song about that on the WotC board cause that part was all them) and could stop movement everywhere within 15ft of himself, and could block ranged attacks that drew a line through that same zone (maybe that was only 10ft not remembering for sure on that) and applied penelties to all melee attacks of his choice not against him in that range, and could choose to trip, disarm, sunder or attack with his 3 attacks all of them getting sneak attack dice...

I am not a big fan of 3e, it is my least favorite edition, but that was amazing. And all he had was a homebrew amulet that didn't effect any of that, a +x armor, a +3 keen spiked chain (I think large size) and a ring of protection... and really all those did was up his ungodly AC and to hit bonuses.

 

[Krachek]

back in 3e (it might have been useing 3pp) a friend made a chain wielding fighter/rogue... he could flank with himself (I even wrote a song about that on the WotC board cause that part was all them) and could stop movement everywhere within 15ft of himself, and could block ranged attacks that drew a line through that same zone (maybe that was only 10ft not remembering for sure on that) and applied penelties to all melee attacks of his choice not against him in that range, and could choose to trip, disarm, sunder or attack with his 3 attacks all of them getting sneak attack dice...

I am not a big fan of 3e, it is my least favorite edition, but that was amazing. And all he had was a homebrew amulet that didn't effect any of that, a +x armor, a +3 keen spiked chain (I think large size) and a ring of protection... and really all those did was up his ungodly AC and to hit bonuses.

The game is there to generate Fantasy. If this character amaze you, then the game make his job!

 

[Chaosmancer]

I agree!

Reading this thread and your post I wonder if the solution to avoid the problem is not worst than the problem.
We got the Wall of force guy, and the normal guy.
We live with that!

Otherwise we either make the wall of force, not so magic and effective, letting a normal guy break it with normal strength,
Or give the equivalent of wall of force to the normal guy pretending it’s just a normal thing.

In this both solution I don’t see real improvement, just a shifting problem.

I go back to my first view. we live with that.
If I cant afford to be a normal guy surrounded by flying guy, I play a flying guy.

There is another solution.

Allow the "normal" guy to have super strength and attempt to break the barrier. Just like they can do the wall of stone.

There is no reason that Wall of Force has to be completely unbreakable

 

[GMforPowergamers]

There is another solution.

Allow the "normal" guy to have super strength and attempt to break the barrier. Just like they can do the wall of stone.

There is no reason that Wall of Force has to be completely unbreakable

you can even say " not all strong people have this chance but fighters do'

 

[Chaosmancer]

?

When did King Arthur do that? Is there a story I haven't read?

Looks like the source is the Mabinogion. Link here for the text:
It says "Then Arthur took the golden chessmen that were upon the board, and crushed them until they became as dust"

This reddit page lists all the various feats of his pulling from Le Mort D'Arthur, History of the Kings of Britain, the Mabinogion, and the Welsh Triads

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just to be clear, you think me saying that "in fantasy and mythology everyone in the team that would be PCs are equals or atlest real close, and the 'normal' people still do amazing superhuman impossible things" will somehow lead to not letting us upgrade fighter?

Yes. Do you want my evidence? Since DnD first came out near 50 years ago the idea has been that the team of PCs are at least close to equal, with normal people who can do amazing things, and we still have not been able to fix this disparity. Because we insist the fighter is "a normal man" and therefore we invite the Guy at the Gym fallacy all the time.

No one bats an eye at The Hulk smashing through a magical barrier of force with his bare fists, but a Barbarian can't do that, because the Barbarian is just "a normal man" with no special magical powers (and many people complain that the Barbarian even now has TOO MANY magical powers). If we drop the facade, and just admit that at a certain level, these people are not "normal men and women" then we can actually start matching feats from myth and legend.

For instance, why not have a fighter able to destroy stone with a dual-wielding maul and carve a tunnel through a mountain in a single day? John Henry did it, and while John Henry wasn't a normal man, he certainly was a heroic man.

I don't mind that. I have pushed for the last 5 years to have Ex and Sn powers in fighter. I just think that "I learned mountain hammer, or foe hammer, and now I can 1/encounter (short rest) ignore resitence with my attacks" is the bare bones bar is in hell minimum.

My problem with Ex and Sn is that it gets into a fundamental problem with DnD. Trying to define magic and "not-magic"

I think this was really highlighted a few years ago with the Sage Advice on why you can't counterspell dragon's breath. Is dragon's breath magical? Most certainly, but it isn't magical in a way that can be dispelled or counterspelled, because that only works on spells. The explanation of "background magical radiation" is a bit of handwavium, but it fundamentally works, because it acknowledges that a lot of stuff in Fantasy is just magical, and that magic is as natural as the air or the water.

Whether or not ignoring enemy resistance is magical or non-magical doesn't matter to me, you can do it, I don't need to try for this separation between the two forces, because then we are trying to define something that was never defined in the stories.

calling them super powers is what keeps being said over and over again stops them from happening... So when I point out Batman (and all his family of heroes) and Hawkeye and Green Arrow don't have super powers they just are 'that good' it's important.

But that narrative justification falls through. Which is a massive problem.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I want those things too, if you find a way to have them make sense in the fiction. "Just because" doesn't work for me.

My explanation is the background radiation of magic in the DnD universe.

Why can a fighter slice boulders with his sword and leap to the roof of a two-story building in a single jump? The same reason that a Giant can exist and a Dragon can Fly, the world is magic. You have trained to the extent that your muscles are magically charged, your skin is magically hardened, the same way that if you came from a world of high-gravity to a world of low-gravity, you could do the same things.

Ki also works, but since it was tied explicitly into Monks, it is harder to justfy as ALSO being used by rogues and fighters and barbarians.

 

[Voadam]

Looks like the source is the Mabinogion. Link here for the text:
It says "Then Arthur took the golden chessmen that were upon the board, and crushed them until they became as dust"

This reddit page lists all the various feats of his pulling from Le Mort D'Arthur, History of the Kings of Britain, the Mabinogion, and the Welsh Triads

I was unaware that he was in the Mabinogion but from what I have heard of it that would explain it.

as Wikipedia says about the Mabinogion "a very different King Arthur from the later popular versions."

Celtic super hero warrior tales having him crush things as a demonstration of strength sounds right.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My explanation is the background radiation of magic in the DnD universe.

Why can a fighter slice boulders with his sword and leap to the roof of a two-story building in a single jump? The same reason that a Giant can exist and a Dragon can Fly, the world is magic. You have trained to the extent that your muscles are magically charged, your skin is magically hardened, the same way that if you came from a world of high-gravity to a world of low-gravity, you could do the same things.

Ki also works, but since it was tied explicitly into Monks, it is harder to justfy as ALSO being used by rogues and fighters and barbarians.

And if any book actually used that explanation for fighter-types being more than human, I would be on board. But...they don't.