D&D General Poll: How tough should 20th Level Fighters be? (MCU edition)

[Crimson Longinus]

Ironman comparison is completely flawed anyway. Ironman is not a fighter. Tony Stark is genius that can create amazing supertech. As noted, in D&D paradigm a character like that would be an artificer.

 

[Flamestrike]

Artificer - Battle smith with a modified Steel Defender he can ride in?

Iron Man?

Artificer [Armorer] all the way.

 

[Flamestrike]

Ironman comparison is completely flawed anyway

How come Thor gets to take advantage of Mjolnir (an artifact level Hammer of Thunderbolts), his magical armor and other stuff? Strange gets a magical cloak that lets him fly and the Eye of Agamemno. Hawkeye gets a super high tech (i.e. magical) Bow and trick arrows. Cap gets his Shield. Scarlet Witch currently has an artifact magical Book on par with the Demonomicon.

I mean come on. It's not like the Avengers are bereft of gear, including their own magical items.

If they get access to artifacts and high tech/ magical gear, so should our Martial.

 

[Flamestrike]

Thor the Barbarian (Storm Herald) 20 - [Hammer (maul) of thunderbolts (attuned), Belt of giant strength, gauntlets of Ogre power (both worn, not attuned), Cloak of protection (attuned), +3 half plate, javelin(s) of lightning, ring of Air elemental command (attuned, activated)] GWM feat.

Strength: 28, Con 24. Fly speed. Can cast Chain lightning, Gust of wind or wind wall, throws his hammer, stunning things. Annihilates giants. All the usual Barbarian 20 goodness.

Iron Man the Artificer (Armorer) 20 - [+2 full plate, ring of protection, boots of flying, cloak of displacement, wand of fireballs, Belt of Giant strength, wand of lighting bolts (all attuned and built into his armor), Tome of Intelligence and many more - hey he IS a 20th level Artificer!]

Strength 21, Int 22. Fly speed, magic missile, lightning bolt, lightning launcher, spell-casting, wall of force (fluffed as armor gadgets). Great at making stuff.

Has a Homonculus called Jarvis that is shaped like a Helmet and he talks to. Jarvis likes to take the Help action a lot, providing information to Iron man (and advantage on skill checks).

Likes to provide others with magical 'high tech' gear, like Hawkeyes +3 bow and trick arrows.

Doctor Strange the Wizard (War Magic) 20. [Robes of the Archmage, ring of wizardry, cloak of the Bat (that functions constantly), Eye of Agnamemno that lets him cast Time Stop and other stuff]

Scarlet Witch the Sorcerer (Wild [Chaos] Magic) 20.

Black Panther the OH Monk 17, Rogue (Scout) 3, expertise in Athletics and Acrobatics. Magical suit that grants resistance to all non-magical damage, and adds +1d6 slashing damage to unarmed strikes.

Hawkeye: Fighter (Battlemaster) 11/ Assassin 9 (Archery style, Precise attack, menacing attack etc). +3 Bow, trick arrows.

Black Widow: Assassin 15/ OHM 5

Etc.

 

[Flamestrike]

While the above PCs are not 'blow for blow' identical to their MCU counterparts, they're on par with each other power wise, and fill the same roles as their MCU counterparts, and are functionally pretty damn similar.

 

[Cadence]

While the above PCs are not 'blow for blow' identical to their MCU counterparts, they're on par with each other power wise, and fill the same roles as their MCU counterparts, and are functionally pretty damn similar.

The MCU Avengers are on vastly disparate power levels from each other though (by orders of magnitude from Thor/CM down to Falcon/Hawkeye).

 

[Flamestrike]

The MCU Avengers are on vastly disparate power levels from each other though (by orders of magnitude from Thor/CM down to Falcon/Hawkeye).

That's like arguing that Batman is a vastly different power level to Superman.

They're not. They're both full 'four color' superheroes, capable of fighting side by side as equals.

If you were to look at character sheets for both heroes, they'd both be of the same level/ use the same number of 'build points' etc.

And before you cry 'that's because of Batmans plot armor' consider his plot armor are likely class features of his (Hit points, Lucky feat, Expertise in skills giving him advanced knowledge of stuff etc).

Hawkeye (a relatively normal human being) fights alongside Thor (a near immortal God) as a relative equal.

Heck, Thor was easily overpowered (and dominated) by Scarlet Witch (along with Captain America and and Iron Man) and Hawkeye was the one to kick her ass and save them. He was the first person Banner though of when getting the team back together, and they spent an awful amount of time trying to convince him to get back into the game.

 

[Flamestrike]

Before anyone claims 'well Mjolnir doesnt really do anything for Thor, and his powers are all his own':


There is Captain America using it to enhance his own abilities (Strength and Con) to go toe to toe with Thanos, conjuring lightning bolts, throwing the thing (and it coming back), and it lifting him in the air.

 

[Mercurius]

Haven't ready the thread, but....

Of course it goes without saying that we can't cleanly correlate D&D and MCU, and there's no "right" answer. But if I wanted to merge the two, this is my take:

Asgardians are meant to be superhuman/immortal. D&D's 20 levels is not immortal, and is essentially mortals/humans maxed out.

So I think the best comp for a 20th level fighter is Captain America - he's augmented, but still human. He's kind of meant to be a "realistic superhuman" - but not a Thor or Superman. He's what you'd get if you could genetically unlock human potential fully (in an athetlc/physical sense), but not to an absurd (Hulkian) extent. We could also imagine him being 11th level right after augmentation, and 20th level by the time we get to IW/EG.

Similarly, we can imagine the non-enhanced MCU characters like BW and Hawkeye as maxed out at 10th level. Meaning, MCU done D&D style puts a cap on normal (non-augmented) humans at 10th level), and above that implies some kind of augmentation. The big 10/11 gap seems like the most natural cap. Batman would go here, but with lots of wonderful toys that make him closer to a 20th level character.

I suppose Jessica Jones, Power Man, etc, could be in that 11-15th range, and the augmented Avengers 16-20th. It may also be that someone like the Hulk has an "epic power" - his strength - that gives him an edge above this range, but as a mortal is still maxed out at 20th.

To accommodate the Asgardians and similar immortals, I would extend levels to 21-30, with Thor being at the upper end of that span. Captain Marvel would be in there, as well.

And of course there are hypothetical powers beyond Thor - like the Celestials from the Eternals films, and various entities from the actual comics that we may see eventually.

So in summary:
Levels 1-10: Non-augmented humans, with a hard cap at 10th.
Levels 11-20: Augmented humans, with 11-15 being "lesser" ones and 16-20 being "greater" ones.
Levels 21-30: Immortals, Asgardians, and equivalents.
Levels 31-40: Greater immortals, cosmic entities. Celestials. Phoenix from X-Men, maybe.
Levels 41-50: Greater cosmic entities, the Beyonder, Thanos with the infinity stones, etc.

IMO.

 

[Mercurius]

That's like arguing that Batman is a vastly different power level to Superman.

They're not. They're both full 'four color' superheroes, capable of fighting side by side as equals.

If you were to look at character sheets for both heroes, they'd both be of the same level/ use the same number of 'build points' etc.

And before you cry 'that's because of Batmans plot armor' consider his plot armor are likely class features of his (Hit points, Lucky feat, Expertise in skills giving him advanced knowledge of stuff etc).

Hawkeye (a relatively normal human being) fights alongside Thor (a near immortal God) as a relative equal.

Heck, Thor was easily overpowered (and dominated) by Scarlet Witch (along with Captain America and and Iron Man) and Hawkeye was the one to kick her ass and save them. He was the first person Banner though of when getting the team back together, and they spent an awful amount of time trying to convince him to get back into the game.

I think a lot of this is because of the wonders of movie-making and the difference between a film and a game, which have different effects.

But compare Superman and Batman without gadgetry (or naked, lol). There's no world in which Batman wins. Ever. The only way he wins is through tech and/or trickery. Furthermore, Superman could theoretically learn to use all of Batman's toys, but Batman couldn't learn Superman's powers.

Hawkeye is Thor's "equal" as an Avenger and fellow combatant, and is capable tricks that makes it so he can do things that Thor cannot, but there's really no world in which Hawkeye defeats Thor in a one-on-one contrast. Or rather, Thor wins 99 out of 100 times. The only way Hawkeye could win would be through use of an arrow to collapse a mountain on Thor, or some such.

On the other hand, it may also be that there's simply more "swinginess" in the MCU. In MCU, you could stab Doctor Strange with a fork and he's dead; that isn't possible in D&D, at least vs. high level characters. On the other hand, MCU has its own brand of ridiculousness - like Tony Stark somehow surviving immense falls in his suit.

The point being, both are different brands of very fictional action, and go by different laws. In my post above, I offered an ad hoc approach that I might take, but there are other ways to do it. I mean, everyone could theoretically be capped at 10 or fewer levels, but but augmented heroes have extra stuff layered on. I mean, Hawkeye is a far more skilled combatant than the Hulk - he's about as good as you can get without augmentation - but would be slaughtered. So maybe you have Hawkeye as a 10th level fighter (or ranger) with normal stats--good, but not superhuman--and the Hulk as 3rd level, but 30 STR and 30 CON, damage resistance, more HP, etc. Or something like that.