D&D General Requesting permission to have something cool

[Paul Farquhar]

In the Marvel Comics Cap is a force even when you think he wouldn't be because he's a great leader, inspiration, and strategist and Thor and the other power-houses aren't. Is there anything in D&D that stops the wizard or cleric or druid or monk or barbarian or paladin from having the leadership, being inspirational, and being a great strategist?

Absolutely. And in the DCU, when Batman and Superman team up, Batman takes the lead because he is the better decision maker, and Superman adopts the sidekick role because he is wise enough to listen to Batman.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Sure it does, I see lots of people playing fighters with no complaints.

Just like they did in 4E, except I don't remember any discussion from that era where people complained about issues with martials being weak or underpowered.

Indeed. Wizards are DIFFICULT TO PLAY. That's your balance. They are extremely powerful - if you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules and a good grasp of tactics.

I'd say that fighters and wizards are both difficult but for completely different reasons. You fumble a wizard by not knowing which spells are good and bad just like you fumble a fighter by not knowing what options to pick. The difference is that everything you do as a fighter is a hard commit and if you misplay (pick a bunch of crap feats, for example) then it's difficult to fix it without GM fiat.

At low levels these issues are less likely to occur, so I'd say a level 1 fighter is much easier to play than a level 1 wizard, but at higher levels the wizard can easily course correct, which the fighter cannot do in practice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not about power.

It's about fantasy.

D&D 5e and most 5e 3pp don't provide martial fantasies. It's all magic warriors.

Again they all keep making magic fighters.

Has anybody made a master swordsman fighter subclass yet? Or an expert marksman Fighters subclass?

I can make either of those things in Level Up, pretty easily (to my standards of course).

 

[Cadence]

Absolutely. And in the DCU, when Batman and Superman team up, Batman takes the lead because he is the better decision maker, and Superman adopts the sidekick role because he is wise enough to listen to Batman.

If Supes was just as good at deciding things and also orders of magnitude more powerful, would it still work?
(Also neglecting the plot armor all comics regularly give the non-invulnerable characters).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And there were plenty of people who LOVED playing Fighters and finally loved that they were actually getting power.

If there had been plenty of people loving anything about that edition the whole design paradigm wouldn’t have been unceremoniously scrapped.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Feels like it if they want to simultaneously have fighters that are:

(1) close to real-world-mundane,
and (2) balanced in capability with the other classes,
and also (3) have Wizards who reliably do all that 5e Wizards do including during combat
and (4) have the game involve physically fighting huge monsters that would crush anything close to real-world-mundane

... because those seem contradictory?

Simply substituting "real-world mundane" for "in game world mundane" feels like it makes it approachable, as would giving up the balance, or nerfing wizards.

Sure, provided an explanation is provided for what "in game world mundane" means.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Indeed. Wizards are DIFFICULT TO PLAY. That's your balance. They are extremely powerful - if you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules and a good grasp of tactics.

True. Personal preference definitely seems to come into play here.

 

[Oofta]

Is this forum dedicated to WotC 5e?

Outside of 4E, no fighter has ever been what some people want in the history of D&D. Even 4E, based on other recent threads, the power level didn't come close. Yes, my 30th level fighter did a lot of damage, had control and auras in 4E but they couldn't "split a ship in two because their sword is so sharp".

 

[Cadence]

Sure, provided an explanation is provided for what "in game world mundane" means.

Having the game set what "in game world mundane is" feels to me like something that should be done all the time.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

True. Personal preference definitely seems to come into play here.

And as an extension to that, if you give a fighter too many bells and whistles, irrespective of if they are themed as magic, superpowers or completely natural, you would find that people won't want to play that either.