D&D General One thing I hate about the Sorcerer

[James Gasik]

I think it cuts a little deeper than that.

When you think of poaching from non-magical characters.... extra attack is kind of it. And as someone who has place a druid and a cleric with Shillelagh and Booming Blade... you don't even NEED extra attack for most characters. So, what else do non-martials even have to poach?

Expertise?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Expertise?

Rogue and Bard ability, so spellcasters already have it, plus the Skill Expert Feat.

Also, all expertise really does is prevent you from failing a skill check. If you need to roll stealth, but are in an open courtyard without cover... it doesn't matter if you roll a 10 or a 30, you cannot stealth. This is why I'm pretty lenient about stealthing if you CAN justify moving from cover to cover. Because otherwise many iconic things a stealthy character with Expertise should be able to do, are impossible.

Or take something like Investigation. If the hidden thing you are looking for is a DC 17 to find, what good does rolling a 28 do you, instead of a 22?

Expertise is great, don't get me wrong, but it is only good at prevent failure, not to opening new options that did not exist before.

 

[Maxperson]

Then bring back the warrior, expert and commoner classes. If people want to role play as NPCs, give them NPC classes. Let PC classes afford the power budget to do the amazing things needed to keep up with casters and fight powerful monsters.

No. You aren't entitled to have very class be magical. Others are entitled to and deserve a mundane PC class, and you can be satisfied with merely the vast majority of classes being magical in some way.

 

[Maxperson]

You can't be a mundane hero in a game where 80% of your allies and enemies are not mundane.

This is completely untrue. I have done so for the last 41 years. Not once have any of my mundane PCs not been a hero in a game where my allies were supernatural in some way. Not once.

 

[Cadence]

No. You aren't entitled to have very class be magical. Others are entitled to and deserve a mundane PC class, and you can be satisfied with merely the vast majority of classes being magical in some way.

Feels like the mundane person battling dragons might like magic items?

And that mundane in the D&D world might stretch farther than mundane in real life. (Is Hawkeye or Batman mundane? Are they treated as such in the comics?)

At some point if they don't have magic items and they're stretching up to Hercules instead of Hawkeye then it feels like they aren't really mundane --- unless the random mundane farmer also might be like Gran'ma Ben in Bone and stopping cows by holding onto their tails and punching through cabin walls.

 

[Maxperson]

Feels like the mundane person battling dragons might like magic items?

Only because they are fun, not because they are needed. At least in 5e.

In prior editions you needed magic weapons to even hurt some creatures, so fighters eventually had to have a magic weapon in 1e and 2e. In 3e there may have been a feat that covered it somewhere in some book, but even it it did, the game math required the fighters to have bonuses to hit that matched magic weapons because of the treadmill it built into the game.

5e has no such limitations.

And that mundane in the D&D world might stretch farther than mundane in real life. (Is Hawkeye or Batman mundane? Are they treated as such in the comics?)

At some point if they don't have magic items and they're stretching up to Hercules instead of Hawkeye then it feels like they aren't really mundane --- unless the random mundane farmer also might be like Gran'ma Ben in Bone and stopping cows by holding onto their tails and punching through cabin walls.

Yep, but at least they got their through skill and dedication, rather than magic handing it to them. It's the non-standard magic 4e mentions, rather than magic items, spells and super powers.

 

[Maxperson]

Then, as a wise person said to me, play a different game.

Why? D&D already allows us to have it. Why should we go to a different game?

 

[Maxperson]

King Arthur and Ulysses don't actually fight monsters, and Arthur in particular has at least two artifacts on his character sheet.

Then Sinbad and Odysseus then.

In the stories where this is relevant, both Batman and Green Arrow are playing a narrative game with a lot of metacurrency, certainly not D&D. In their own stories they tend to be more grounded.

They also rely a lot on gadgets which are the equivalent to magic items

I have no idea who or what Krillin is.

Krillin is the least applicable of the bunch! He's from Dragonball Z and is a normal human that learns to harness his ki to allow him to throw powerful energy blasts, fly and other things. He has supernatural access all over the place.

 

[Maxperson]

I really don't see the value in tying class mechanics to the Forgotten Realms in any specific way in the PHB.

Leave the setting specifics to the setting books. That's what they're there for.

If we do want showcase something, I'd showcase multiple examples of legendary warriors from differing settings and specifically highlight that while their capabilities may be similar, their sources of power can vary wildly, and advise the player that they can work out the specifics with their GM.

Default settings should go the way of the Dodo.

 

[Maxperson]

The following is true for every official D&D setting.

Players Handbook (page 205):

"
The worlds within the D&D multiverse are magical places. All existence is suffused with magical power, and potential energy lies untapped in every rock, stream, and living creature, and even in the air itself. Raw magic is the stuff of creation, the mute and mindless will of existence, permeating every bit of matter and present in every manifestation of energy throughout the multiverse."

"

Forgotten Realms calls this suffusive "magical energy" the Weave, but exists in every D&D setting.

That said, later 5e products have mentioned the Psionic power source, in addition to Arcane and Divine. Primal is defacto a power source for Druid and Barbarian.

The name doesn't really matter. The PHB lists druids, rangers, etc. as divine. If they change it to primal, then primal will also access the weave. Psionic as well. Any sort of "magic" accesses the weave.